Nervous Laugh
by cynic.in.a.fishbowl
Summary: Ten years from now, we're going to look back on this, laugh nervously, and then change the subject."
1. Chapter 1

I was standing on platform nine and three quarters, and I just wanted to get the farewells over with. To be utterly frank, I was pissed off that I had been forced to leave the school I had attended from age six just in order to learn magic. I wanted to continue learning French and Latin, two subjects I knew wouldn't exist at Hogwarts. Mathematics also wouldn't exist: I wasn't bereft about that, but even I knew that I would need some semblance of mathematics in real life.

Wishing my mobile phone would have reception at Hogwarts, or that there would at least be internet, or even electricity so that I could use my mp3, after all, my friends knew that I was going to boarding school, not that I was going to be dropping off the face of the earth, I returned to the present because I could see my dad was about to say something to me.

"Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie." he said, indicating an incredibly pale boy standing with his parents, looking about as irritated as I was. "Thank god you inherited your mother's brains."

"Ron, for heaven's sake!" Responded my mum. "Don't try to turn them against each other before they've even started school!"

"You're right, sorry." Said my dad. He was so whipped. I stifled a smirk. Once mum had turned to chat with aunt Ginny, he continued furtively "Don't get _too_ friendly with him, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you for marrying a pureblood." I hated that dad called me Rosie. I was too old for that type of nickname these days, but I knew he liked it.

"Well, I'm off, ickle Wosie off for her first day of big school, have fun without the noise."

"Oh Rose, we'll miss you!" mum enthused.

"I have no doubt. See you." I gave her a hug, and turned to dad. "I'll write as often as I can. I still don't see why I can't just use a ballpoint pen."

"I've already explained it. The magic makes them go insane." Dad said. "No irritating Mrs Norris. I've actually developed some kind of respect for her."

"See you dad." I said giving him a hug, and then carrying my trunk onto the train, my little brother Hugo following, wheeling my double bass. I had been playing since I was eight, and whilst I may have been cut off from the rest of the world, there was no way I was going without my bass.

"See you, Ranga." I said, saluting him as he returned to our parents. Two years younger, he'd be joining me soon enough.

"Et tu, Bruté." He retorted.

I slapped him over the head and waved to my parents from the window. I looked at my watch, or more correctly, one of dad's old watches, and then propped my feet up on the seat next to me. Eventually, someone would come into the compartment, and then I'd get to meet someone new. James, in an uncharacteristic moment of fraternity, was introducing Albus to the first year siblings of his friends. I had declined. All of James' friends were from entirely magical households, they had never been to state school. I found that just a little bit odd. Mum had insisted Hugo and I go to muggle school 'I went there, and it didn't harm me' was the general argument brought forward. The train started to move, and I turned to the window and waved furiously. Once the platform was out of sight, I pulled out the book I had brought for the journey: 'Hannibal' by Thomas Harris. Teddy had recommended it for the gore. I liked it for the plot. Either way, if my parents knew I was reading it, they'd freak out.

I had only read half a page when someone said quietly "May I?" indicating the seat opposite, which was empty, save for my feet, which were clad in mismatched fluorescently striped socks. I immediately realised that in comparison to the boy at the entrance of my compartment, I looked like a total hippie. I nodded.

The boy was the one whom my father had warned me against, although I couldn't see why. He was really pale, but otherwise seemed rather normal. He was dressed normally. I, on the other had, was wearing an old pair of flares that were so faded as to be almost white, converses (on the floor), a shirt that said 'my smirk is entirely obsequious, thanks for asking' (a birthday present from my cousin Victoire, who said my sense of sarcasm was overdeveloped), and, of course, the socks. Socks that, if you looked at them in direct sunlight, caused permanent retinal damage.

I put away Hannibal as this mystery child (or evil mystery child, if my dad was to be believed) sat diagonally opposite from me, slipped off his shoes and rested his feet on my seat. His socks, like the rest of him, were entirely normal. Apart from his paleness, he was the epitome of normal. Pale skinned, completely devoid of freckles, so blond his hair was almost white, and with pale grey eyes, he was the polar opposite of all the boys I had grown up with.

"Hi. I'm Scorpio Malfoy. I'm a first year." He offered me his hand. I shook it.

"Rose Weasley. Ditto."

No wonder dad didn't like him. Generally, his stories of the 'good old days' all involved some Malfoy bashing. Mum generally chimed in to say that he wasn't all that bad, just a bit of an ass.

"Nice name."

I groaned internally. My name was so bland that everyone automatically commented on it. "Hardly. It implies sweetness and innocence, with perhaps a touch of embroidering something."

He half smiled. "And I take it you're not the sweet, innocent, embroidering type."

I snorted. "I'm more the rugby playing, bass clef reading, preteen rebel."

"Bass clef reading?" he asked incredulously.

"My school's band was rather sexist when it came to assigning instruments to learn. Girls were pure treble. Since they wouldn't let me play tuba, I talked my mum into letting me learn the double bass externally." I indicated the bass. "It seems she didn't like the whole tuba idea either."

Scorpius smiled a little more. "I was at an all boys school, which meant someone had to play the… higher pitch instruments. Luckily, I – to quote the music master – exhibited an affinity for the tuba. One of my friends was stuck playing the flute."

"Ouch."

"He's a real martyr about it. Tell me, is there a nickname you prefer?"

"Not really. I'm warning you, though. Call me Rosie, and I will pull your internal organs out through your nostrils." I smiled sweetly. "That having been said, do you have a preferred name?"

"God yes. At my school, fitting in was paramount. When I was enrolled, my father put down a different name. I'm called Scorpius after my great grandfather, but I've been called Riley by all of my friends since I was five."

"Riley it is."

"For now." He said bitterly. I tilted my head questioningly.

"Apparently, I'm to be Scorpius at Hogwarts. I need to get used to it." The way he said Hogwarts gave me the impression that he wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of attending.

"Not too excited about boarding school?"

"That's not the issue. I've been attending one for the past six years."

The curiosity was getting irritating.

"Where did you go to school?"

Scorpius muttered something slightly coherent. I must have misheard.

"You went to ETON?"

"Yeah."

Well. It seems I hadn't.

"Eton?"

"Eton."

"ETON?"

"The same. I mean for heaven's sake. I have to change schools, and I can't even attend one with a normal school uniform? I thought the tie and tails were bad, but at least they weren't robes."

"I know. It's nasty."

"So," he asked, "where did you go to school?"

"St George's prep. The local school." I stood up to stretch. Sitting down again, I could see that our owls were clearly getting along.

"It seems Spike has become well acquailted with your owl."

"You named your owl 'Spike', Rose?"

"My mum named him. She said when I'm older hand have fully appreciated the wonders of Buffy I'll understand. What's yours named?"

"Jack."

"That's very garden variety." I was trying not to laugh. That would have to be the most normal name for an owl in the history of wizardkind.

"As in 'the ripper'." He said with an absolutely straight face.

"Nice." I said appreciatively.

We chatted for the next few hours about our families, our lives before Hogwarts, music and sports. Glancing out the window, I saw it was getting rather dark.

"We'd better get changed, Scorpius. We should be at Hogwarts soon."

"Oh. I'm terribly sorry." Was his reply, and as I stood up to access my trunk, he left the carriage and closed the door. Wondering what as going on, I walked to the door and peered out.

"Care to enlighten me as to what that was about, Scorpius?" I asked.

Scorpius was looking straight ahead, not even glancing at me in his peripheral vision. He turned slightly pink.

"You were about to get changed. It would be improper…" he stuttered.

He was worried about my virtue. How sweet.

"I'm putting on a robe."

"But you need to change into the rest of the uniform."

"But I'll have the robe on top."

I couldn't see what the issue was, I had a brother and a few thousand male cousins, I knew how to get changed discretely.

"It still wouldn't be right." He maintained.

"Is this the type of thing they teach you at Eton?"

"This and multiplication, yes."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever."

I changed quickly, and reopened the door to elbow Scorpius in the ribs. "Your turn, captain chastity."

Scorpius looked sheepish. I rolled my eyes again. A few minutes later, he reopened the door, also dressed in his school uniform with robe on top. We returned to our previous seating arrangements, although this time I had my feet on the ground thanks to the fact that I had to wear a skirt.

Scorpius made a noise as if he had just remembered something. "Apparently, they've scrapped the whole first years travelling via boat across the lake thing."

"What! Why?" I exclaimed.

"My dad's on the board of trustees. It's too much of a risk. Three kids fell in last year, and one of them almost got hypothermia."

"James is going to be so peeved. He's spent the last three months telling Albus how scary it's going to be."

"They are?" he asked.

"My cousins. Two of the multitude."

We looked out the window, just in time to see Hogwarts looming out of the shadows. Soon after, the train stopped, and we alighted.

Someone was calling "First years! Little people over here!"

Indicating with my head that Scorpius should follow, I made my way towards the voice. I saw a tall, rather muscular man in a suit with a few first years already in front of him. They all stood in twos and threes, looking rather scared.

Seeing everyone there, the man spoke. "I am Professor Longbottom, and I'm here to take you to Hogwarts. As some of you are no doubt aware, you will not be arriving by boat."

There was a collective sigh of relief, interspersed with a few groans.

"You will be travelling by carriage, like the rest of the students. You will simply be arriving after them. Now come with me."

Like a flock of sheep, we followed, and got into carriages. Soon we stood at the doors of the great hall, about to be sorted. I was mildly nervous. Everyone in my very extended family was in Gryffindor. My parents and all of their families had been Gryffindor; each and every one of my cousins either was currently was or had once been a Gryffindor. If I were sorted anywhere else, I would be screwed.

Professor Longbottom, whom I realised must have been 'uncle Neville' whom we had visited every summer before he moved to the Orkneys was already calling people up to be sorted. The poor girl at the start of the alphabet, Madeline Angus, looked as if she were awaiting execution. Being at the end of the alphabet helped at times like this.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat.

Madeline took it off, visibly calmer, and then walked over to the now cheering Gryffindor table. I glanced over to Al. He was completely white, and it looked like he wasn't breathing. 'Relax' I mouthed to him. He didn't react.

I resisted the urge to tally in my head how many boys and girls were sorted into each house, knowing it would just freak me out more. I sang in my head, a technique uncle George had assured me was fantastic for zoning out in high stress situations like being yelled at by the deputy principal… or even worse, Grandma Molly. Something he assured me had happened incredibly often when he and his twin Fred had been younger.

"They're up to Macarthur." Whispered a tense voice in my ear. Scorpius, it seemed was a touch nervous.

"You'll be fine. It'll be over soon enough." I whispered back. But I was wrong, as there was an incredibly large Scots contingent. After Macarthur (Ravenclaw), there was MacCormack (Slytherin), MacIvor (another Ravenclaw), MacKillop (Ravenclaw again), and some unfortunately named child named Richard MacRichards (Hufflepuff). Finally, professor Longbottom called out "Malfoy, Scorpius."

The deathly silence that fell was, well, deathly. Scorpius swore under his breath, and then let go to take the walk to the sorting stool. Some whispers started up as he went, but they stopped once he had the hat on his head. I waited to see what house he'd be in, hoping it would be Gryffindor so that we could stay friends.

The hat spent a while deliberating, before saying "SLYTHERIN!"

Or not.

Scorpius took off the hat, and walked off towards the Slytherin table. The next name called was Albus. No brainer where he was going.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Not surprising in the least. Eventually I was called. I was the last first year to be sorted. I walked towards the hat, sat down, had it placed on my head, and almost jumped when it spoke to me.

"Another Weasley."

'That'd be about right.' I thought.

"Hmmm… you're the first to give lip since those hell raiser twins. Let's see…" it mused.

'It's Gryffindor, isn't it.' I half asked half knew.

But it seems I had been half wrong.

"SLYTHERIN!"

What. The. Hell. If I thought the silence accorded to Scorpius was deathly, then what followed this announcement was like that silence, after everyone involved was dead, and the entire vicinity had been hit with radioactive weaponry. What were my parents going to think? I knew dad had been hoping I'd follow in his footsteps. I caught a glimpse of my extended family members over at the Gryffindor table. They were all absolutely dumbfounded.

Mentally I shrugged, then I got up and made my way over to the Slytherin table, where the first year students were sitting in a clump next to a corner of the hall. Scorpius had left space next to him, right next to the wall. I sat, glad for the fact that talk had finally resumed. The feast began, but all I could do was lean against the wall and try not to cry. All my life I had lived under the assumption, the knowledge that I would be placed in Gryffindor along with the rest of my family. I would have to tell my parents immediately, lest they find out some other way.

"Are you alright, Rose?"

I opened my eyes and looked at Scorpius, who was looking extremely worried.

"I'm fine. Just freaking out about how my family back home will react. My granddad will probably have a heart attack."

"Wow. My dad didn't care too much about which house I'd be sorted into."

"I'll just have to learn to work with it."

"It's only school."

"For the next seven years of my life, during which time my childhood friends will all have grown up, being normal."

"Rose, for us, this is normal."

Eventually, it was time to go to our new dormitories. In the foyer of the great hall, I managed to get word to James.

"Not a word, to anyone about this until I've told them. Pass it on." He knew I was referring to our parents.

The group of ten first years were led down numerous flights of stirs and through corridors until we reached what looked like a blank wall.

"Alright guys, the password is 'Redemption'" said the female prefect. "You'll need to use it whenever you enter the common room. Otherwise, it's pretty self evident."

The wall had opened at the word redemption, and we all walked in. the common room was decorated in greed and silver, with light coming from glowing orbs floating in the ceiling. There were no windows, but there was instead a glass wall that showed the bottom of what must have been the great lake.

"Girls, with me, boys go with Henry." Said the prefect, who indicated for the boys to follow the male prefect to their dormitories.

"This is your room. Try not to set fire to each other whilst in it. Welcome to the snakepit."

She left, and I turned to the others.

"Snakepit?"

The one girl whose name I knew, Alexandra MacCormack spoke up.

"It's a bit of a Slytherin joke. My mum said they said it to her when she first came here. I'm Alex MacCormack, by the way."

"Rose Weasley."

"Alice Spinnett-Wood."

"Laura Quealey."

"Raeanne Darcy." She spoke with an accent.

Something about Alice's name seemed strangely familiar.

"Alice," I asked, "did your parents play quiddich?"

"Yeah, they did. For Gryffindor. They're going to freak when they find out I'm in Slytherin."

"I thought so. My dad and all but one of my uncles played quiddich with them when they were here. My family are also going to freak about the whole Slytherin thing."

"Mine just freaked when I made the cat float with my mind. The next day, I got the letter from Hogwarts." Laura, it seemed was from a muggle family.

Raeanne moved towards her trunk and began to unpack. "I was going to attend New Salem Academy of Magic, over in Boston, but we moved here before the year started. My parents are just thrilled I got in at such short notice."

"My family's been pretty wholly Slytherin for the past few decades. Seems it'll be staying that way." Interjected Alex.

"Who plays the double bass?" asked Alice.

"Me."

They all turned to look at me.

"Cool." Said Laura.

By then it was past midnight (my watch had to be wind up because clockwork wasn't affected. I had the watch my dad had worn when he was at Hogwarts.) Knowing that I'd have to spend the next day agonising over what to write to my parents, I went to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

I stood on platform nine and three quarters, flanked by my parents. All around us, there were parents and children exchanging sentimental goodbyes. We had more or less said goodbye before arriving. My father knew he was going to be rather tense, surrounded by the people he had gone to school with. His years at Hogwarts had been less than brilliant. Or at least that was the impression I had garnered from the few times he had spoken about his childhood.

In effect, I was embarking on a whole new life. While my parents practised magic at home, my father and I had both hoped I would turn out to be a squib. My father, because he didn't want me to have to live with the stigma of his father's actions, and to a lesser extent, his own. Me, because I had attended Eton from the age of five, and all of the people I knew there, my best friends, were all just normal muggles. To them, I was just Riley (my parents had decided to put my name as Riley for my years at Eton. They had obviously realised that Scorpius was one of the most utterly stupid names they could possibly have come up with. They still insisted on calling me Scorpius at home). A normal boy.

At Hogwarts, I was to be Scorpius, boy with a rather suspect family history.

"I still don't see why I couldn't just stay at Eton."

"I'm sure they'd love it when you started conjouring up fireballs."

"Come on, dad, that was one time."

"And you're going to Hogwarts so that you learn how to control your magic and it accordingly stays just one time."

"You must admit, Draco, it was rather impressive for unconscious use of magic." My mum interjected.

"Apart from his eyebrows being burnt off." Dad responded.

"Admittedly, it needs work, but it's a useful skill."

"Our son will not be perfecting his flame throwing."

"Just because the dragons don't like you." My mother works with dragons. Dragons like her. My father for the UN. It seems the UN has a use for wizards. No-one knows what that use is, but apparently it exists.

"Dragons don't shoot flames out of their eyes."

"Guys! Some normalcy?"

My parents raised their eyebrows. They turned to each other, and my father replied, "You should really get on the train"

As I picked up my trunk and made for the train, my father told me not to shoot flames at someone called Mrs Norris. A somewhat odd instruction, especially since I hadn't set anyone on fire since that initial great balls of fire incident.

When the train began to move, I waved until my parents were out of sight. Then I went to look for an empty compartment, and failing that, a compartment that wasn't filled with people who already knew each other. They must have gone to those schools run by the Ministry for the children of witches and wizards to ensure that once magic started asserting itself, it wasn't in a state school. Eventually, I found a carriage that was empty save for a redheaded girl who was reading a book called Hannibal. My parents had been less than thrilled when they had found me reading it.

Entering the carriage, I introduced myself. It turned out that her name was Rose Weasley. It seemed her family was rather well known in the British wizarding world. I wouldn't know, having lived in Finland whenever I wasn't at Eton. My mother was Finnish, and until then, the only real contact I'd had with girls was with my cousins whenever I saw them over the summer. And that wasn't even in English.

That having been said, she seemed nice enough, if somewhat quirky. She had brought her double bass with her. Clearly she didn't know that the magic floating around at Hogwarts messed up any instrument that hadn't been specially made to withstand the magic in the atmosphere. Otherwise, I would have brought my tuba.

We talked for the rest of the train ride. Her reaction when she had found out I went to Eton had been priceless. For a while it had looked like she was about to have an aneurism.

Once we were in uniform, we continued talking. Rose was horrified to find out that we weren't to be travelling to Hogwarts by boat. It seems that we had both been looking forward to it. Upon arriving at Hogwarts, we made our way over to the deputy principal, Professor Longbottom.

By the time sorting started, I was a bit nervous. When the hat had made it to Macarthur, I was freaking out. Rose reassured me that the suspense would be over soon. But she hadn't expected the number of people of Scottish descent, because after Macarthur came MacCormack, MacIvor, MacKillop and some poor sod whose parents had seen fit to name Richard MacRichards.

When I was finally called, a pronounced hush fell. I just concentrated on not passing out. Walkign to the front of the hall, I put on the hat.

'So. You didn't even want to attend?' asked the hat.

'Not in the slightest. I was happy at Eton.' I thought in response.

'I hear your father's doing don't-ask-and-I-won't-need-to-kill-you-because-you-know work with the UN. Good for him. He didn't have the best time at Hogwarts.'

'He doesn't really talk about his childhood much.'

'I don't blame him. But now to the business at hand…'

"SLYTHERIN!"

Bugger. As I was taking off the hat, it said 'You'll thank me for this some day.'

Rose was the last first year to be sorted. After a brief pause, the hat yelled SLYTHERIN!

That was a surprise. Looking over at the Griffindor table, I saw a group of redheads looking entirely gobsmacked. That must have been Rose's extended family. There was a shocked silence throughout the hall. And if I thought the silence prior to my sorting had been profound, then this was that silence to the nth degree.

Rose walked over to the Slytherin table, sat next to me, leaned against the wall, and then looked to be trying very hard not to cry. I did my best to make sure she didn't burst into tears. Somehow I didn't think that was the first impression she was aiming to make.

Eventually, everyone went back to their dormitories. The boys were separated off with a prefect named Henry, who showed us to our room and laid down the rules.

"Alright guys. No flame throwing in the dormitories. No sharp objects. No Duelling. No kidnapping Mrs Norris. And no girls. Otherwise, welcome to the snakepit."

"They actually expect us to practise flame throwing in the dormitories?" I thought aloud.

"Well no-one's tried it since that incident with Fred and George Weasley twenty three years ago. They tried to burn an effigy of Mrs Norris. The staff were not amused." Answered one of the others.

"Who is this Mrs Norris everyone talks about?" I asked, irritated by the fact that I didn't know who this legendary character was.

"Mrs Norris was the name of the cat belonging to Filch, the caretaker here from the time of my parents. He retired about a decade ago, and now he's a cat breeder apparently. Mrs Norris died about fifteen years ago, and is now a ghost. And a malignant one at that."

I stood there with eyebrows raised for a moment, before muttering 'they don't stand for that crap in the public schools.'

"Too right." Agreed another boy. "The name's Bond… James Bond, by the way."

"I thought that was a joke when they called it out." Said another boy who then introduced himself as Peter Colt.

"Sadly not." Said James. "My father's last name was Bond, and apparently they couldn't help themselves."

"It's not as bad as Scorpius." I interjected.

"True." Agreed one of the two remaining boys. "I'm William Smith, I go by Bill, and this is my brother John."

"There weren't any malignant ghosts at my old school." Said James somewhat whistfully.

"Nor at mine." I agreed. "Where were you?"

"Harrow. Part of a long line of men from my family spanning about a century and a half. Apparently the whole magic thing is some deep dark family secret. Yourself?"

"Eton. They didn't stand for that kind of rubbish there."

"The house next door was haunted." Said Peter. "The neighbours freaked and kept trying to exorcise the 'malignant prescence'. It was the ghost of this nice little old lady. So she moved to our house. Apparently my family were a lot more accommodating."

"Our family was more or less ready to exorcise our 'malignant presences'. Well the relatives at least. Mormons. Normally, they live in some commune in Texas, they were here to spread the good word or some such. They didn't react well to Bill and I levitating each other." Said John.

"I started throwing around fire and all my dad said was 'you've gone and burnt off your eyebrows.'" I said.

"That's stoicism." Was James' reply.

Suddenly a paper aeroplane flew into our room, hovering at eye level until Peter opened it.

"'Will you psychotically energetic little midget people shut up so that the rest of us can sleep? We're a brutal bunch when we're tired.

Kind regards, the seventh years.' They seem rather peeved… and rife with violent tendencies." He remarked as the paper caught fire in his hands. "Oh well. Night all."


	3. Chapter 3

Ron Weasley was sitting at the kitchen table with his nine year old son Hugo, eating cereal. His wife, Hermione was outside doing battle with a tribe of exceedingly well organised garden gnomes. Finding that the diminutive hordes were advancing, Hermione called for reinforcements.

"Ron, darling," she began in a voice that brooked death in the event of opposition, "Could you bring Anthrax and Megadeth out here? I need them to lay waste to the gnomes." George had given her the cats after Crookshank's death, and had already named them. He thought that giving them the names of Speed Metal bands was pleasantly ironic.

"Just a moment, a letter from Rose just arrived."

"NOW, Ron."

Ron went to fetch the cats. Hugo, seeing that the letter had already been opened by his father, reached across the table and read it. Raising his eyebrows, he put it back where it had been and concentrated very hard on keeping a straight face.

Ron reappeared with a cat on either shoulder. It seemed that they liked it up there. He walked out to the garden, flung the cats in the general direction of the gnomes and then gave Hermione a kiss.

"You're never going to vanquish them, Hermione. A little profanity written in the garden can't possibly be all that bad."

"I have nothing wrong with the profanity they learned to write per se, it's just the fact that they're misspelling it. I shouldn't feel the need to correct the spelling of 'motherfucker' when it's written messily in the middle of the lawn."

"The bad spelling is a bit irritating, isn't it. Let's go read Rose's letter."

Re-entering the kitchen, Ron sat down again and picked up the letter. Hermione stood behind him and read it over his shoulder.

_Dear mum and dad,_

_I'm at Hogwarts now and it seems cool. Tomorrow is the first day of classes, so I'll write more once it happens. _

_They've stopped sending the first years over the lake. Apparently it's a health risk. _

_Say hi to Hugo for me._

_Much love_

_Rose._

_P.S. I'm in Slytherin. Don't hate me._

Ron, who had just taken a mouthful of tea when he read the post script, spat it out in a manner remarkably similar to a cartoon character.

Hermione shrugged and went to see how the cats were faring. Waste had been laid. And impressively at that. Returning to the kitchen, she saw Ron was frozen in the same position as he had left him in. Hugo had gone to get ready for school.

"Ron."

Ron didn't move.

"I'm pregnant."

That got his attention.

"What?"

"Not really. You don't think you're overreacting?"

"To the imaginary pregnancy or to _that_." He said, somewhat hysterically, indicating the letter from Rose, which sat in a puddle of tea on the table.

"Just the letter."

"What am I going to do, Hermione? My progeny has brought shame on the Weasley line. My parents probably won't talk to me again. Percy'll get all smarmy. Ginny's going to be all sympathetic, and worst of all, George is just going to say 'good for her' and then go back to plotting anarchy. I'm going to be excommunicated! It's the end of days!"

"Get over it, Ron. We'll be seeing your family tonight anyway, it's the annual 'the kids are gone so let's celebrate' party."

"Oh god. I wouldn't be able to get the flesh eating virus before this evening, would I?"

Hermione slapped him over the head and told him to hurry up or they'd be late for work. Ron muttered something about how he'd never be able to show his face at work ever again. Hermione ignored him.

That evening, the entire extended Weasley family met at number 12 Grimwald place to enjoy the first bit of peace and quiet of the school year.

Ron and Hermione were the last to arrive. Hermione had needed to resort to death threats just to get Ron out of the car. Entering the house, they dutifully said hello to everyone. George, as Teddy's guardian was there, along with Bill and Fleur, Ginny and Harry, Charlie and ??? and Mr and Mrs Weasley. Percy and Penelope had, as usual, declined to attend. Leaning in to kiss Mrs Weasley on the cheek, Hermione murmured 'You're going to need to talk some sense into your son, Molly.'

'Why?' she murmured in reply.

'You'll see.'

They were halfway through dinner when the subject of their children came up.

"So," began Charlie, "Another clean sweep of Gryffindor this year?"

Harry and Ginny nodded, Ron choked, and Hermione dropped the bombshell of the century. Or at least it was to the people assembled.

"Rose was placed in Slytherin."

Harry reacted exactly as Ron had, causing Ginny to threaten to hex him into next week unless he showed some decorum. Bill and Charlie exchanged glances. Mrs Weasley glanced at Hermione, who nodded. Ron hung his head. Mr Weasley asked if he had misheard. George didn't react. Hermione repeated her statement. Mr Weasley shrugged.

"It was bound to happen at some time."

Later that evening, Ron and Harry were talking.

"What have you heard about that magic school in wales?" Ron asked.

"The magical agricultural school?"

"As long as Rose isn't a Slytherin, it'll alright."

Mrs Weasley, who happened to overhear that comment, gave Ron the third degree.

"My GOD, Ronald. You can't just be happy for your daughter? You're worried that she's going to be fundamentally damaged as a result of the house she's in? Really. Harden up."

Hermione, Ginny, Fleur and George tried not to laugh. Bill and Charlie exchanged glances.

Mr Weasley shrugged and patted Ron on the shoulder. "You'll get over it, son."


	4. Chapter 4

**And now we're back, prior to the beginning of the fifth year.**

"ROSE! TURN DOWN THAT CRAP!" mum yelled up the stairs. She didn't like my taste in music.

"SERIOUSLY, MUM. YOU HAVE CATS NAMED ANTHRAX AND MEGADETH. YOU COULD AT LEAST TOLERATE A LITTLE SYMPHONIC METAL." I yelled in return. I was listening to 'Hall of the Mountain King' by Apocalyptica. The milder stuff I listened to.

"YOUR UNCLE GEORGE NAMED THEM, AND IT'S ALL THEY'LL RESPOND TO. THERE'S A LETTER FOR YOU."

Pausing my windows media player, I walked downstairs. I had been emailing Scorpius when I had been interrupted.

"What?"

Mum pointed at a letter.

"It's already been opened, mum."

"Talk to your father."

"He still hasn't gotten over the whole Slytherin thing, has he?"

"I'm sure he'll be over it by the time you graduate."

"Here's hoping." I muttered, taking the letter out of the envelope. With it, came a green and silver prefect badge.

"Nice work, Rose. Your father and I were prefects."

"What was dad's reaction?"

"He's really proud of you, Rose. It's just taking him a while to process the whole Slytherin thing."

"Five years?" I asked.

"At least you haven't started going out with anyone. That would probably give him a heart attack."

_Not to mention the fact that my best friend is Scorpius_ I thought. I had managed to keep that fact from my parents thanks to the fact that Scorpius always spent the summer holidays in Finland. He's the one who introduced me to the wonders of metal.

"Well, now that you and Hugo have your book lists, we may as well go to Diagon Alley."

"Where you can tell all your school friends that your daughter is a prefect?" I asked.

"Obviously. Otherwise I'd just get George to take you."

"Why am I unsurprised. I'll go get ready."

Returning upstairs, I finished the email, leaving out the fact that I was prefect. That could be a surprise for the train ride. Something that was now only three days away. When I returned downstairs, mum was talking to aunt Ginny on the phone about the fact that I was prefect. It turned out Albus was too.

Upon arriving via the floo network, mum went off to get my books and gossip, and I went to Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, uncle George's shop.

"Hey Rose." Said Teddy, who having finished school was training to become a doctor at Merlin's gate, one of the two wizarding universities in the UK. During the holidays, he worked with uncle George.

"Hey Teddy. Hi uncle George." I said as he emerged from the back room.

"Hi Rose. Apparently you got prefect."

"Apparently so."

"I must say I'm somewhat disappointed. I had been hoping you'd follow in Fred's and my illustrious footsteps and just cause generalised anarchy."

"Sorry about that. I'll try harder. Anyway, how'd you find out?"

"Little Ronnie came in prior to work. Then Ginny called."

"Little Ronnie?" Teddy and I asked in unison.

"Childhood nickname I never let him grow out of."

"How's the quiddich going, Rose?" Teddy asked.

"Not much to say. That quiddich camp I attended in the holidays was completely useless. Everyone tried playing all the positions, but otherwise, I learnt nothing. Although I did manage to splinter numerous bats when I was playing beater."

"I don't see why you couldn't play beater at Hogwarts like Teddy. Fred and I were legendary in our day. We had the highest casualty rates of any beaters in Hogwarts history. We used to play bludger tennis. Keeper's a plenty noble calling, little Ronnie was even keeper for a while, but still. Less capacity for destruction."

"Someone's feeling a little nihilist." I remarked.

"Take a look at what Teddy developed during the holidays." Said George.

From under the counter, uncle George pulled out a ballpoint pen. I raised my eyebrows.

"They won't go all psycho when they get near Hogwarts." Teddy said before turning to serve some customers.

"How'd he manage that?" I asked.

"Apparently ballpoint pens react the same way at Merlin's Gate and at St. Mungo's, and he dislikes quills about as much as you, so he built a pen from scratch, doing all sorts of protective charms on it, and basically, he created the Unkillable Ballpoint Pen. It's fireproof, coldproof and most importantly, magicproof. As you can see," he said, indicating a shelf stocked with the Unkillable Ballpoint Pens, "So far they've only been developed in black, but they've still been really popular with all the kids who went to state schools. I myself still prefer quills. You can spell a quill to do your accounting for you. The same can't be said for a magicproof pen. Where's Hugo, by the way?"

"Off staying with one of his friends."

"Speaking of friends," interjected Teddy, "What's going on between you and someone named Scorpius Malfoy?"

Uncle George's eyebrows went skyward.

"Nothing is going on. We're friends. Who have you been talking to?"

"I have my sources. They beg to differ."

"Oh yes? What do your sources say."

Uncle George coughed something that sounded suspiciously like 'defensive'.

"There's a betting pool among some of the older students as to when you two hook up. Among other things."

"And let me guess. James is running it."

"Who else?"

"Seriously, Teddy. We've been friends since the first day of school. You don't think of your best friend that way. It would be creepy and weird."

"Rose, I didn't want to be the one to have to give you this talk, but he's fifteen now. That means he's a ticking hormone bomb. You are regarded as one of the more attractive girls at Hogwarts."

I raised an eyebrow in incredulity.

"Again, my sources. Anyway. When that hormone bomb goes off, it goes off on whichever girl is closest. Generally, the best friend."

"Like hell." I said.

"Ask your aunt Ginny about your parents, Rose." Said uncle George. "And then there's Oliver Wood's daughter, what's her name… Alice. I played quiddich with her parents. Oliver and Alicia were always good friends, and then suddenly the penny dropped. You get the picture."

"It would still be creepy and weird." I reasserted.

"Yeah." Snorted Teddy.

"Right." Chuckled uncle George.

"Seriously, Rose, as soon as the growth spurt hits, so do the hormones. He's probably going to try to suppress said hormones, because he no doubt thinks that it would be creepy and weird. But it's going to happen. And then your dad's going to confine you to a nunnery."

"Teddy, this is getting really awkward. Unbelievably so. Can we please pretend this conversation never took place? And tell your 'sources' they can go to hell. And tell James that I view him as a slinky."

"Tell James that you view him as a slinky?"

"Basically useless, but fun to push down a flight of stairs."

"Rose." Mum said from the doorway. "We still need to pack these in your trunk."

"That was quick."

"What can I say. I'm efficient. Hi Teddy, Hi George. Ooh. Ballpoint pens. Are they actually magicproof?"

"They work at Merlin's and at St. Mungo's, as well as at the ministry. Theoretically, they should also work at Hogwarts, but I haven't been able to test them. Once they've been tested, we start mail ordering them to Hogwarts. Rose, take a few. Tell me if they work. And then there will be much rejoicing." Teddy gave me a few of the pens. Mum bought a few, and then we returned home.

Mum was thrilled that someone had finally made ballpoint pens that would work at the ministry. Upon arriving home, I checked my email. There was a reply from Scorpius. Shuddering at the memory of the conversation I had just had with Teddy, I opened it.

From: .com

To: .com

Subject: [none]

Hi Rose.

Sorry I haven't written sooner. They aren't big on internet in Lapland.

Jetlag is a bitch. So is the Arctic Circle. And jetlag as a result of being in the arctic circle… I'll leave it to your imagination. And as you imagine, it was cold. My mum and her sisters decided the whole family would spend the holidays in Lapland. It was cold. And the lack of night time thing was really weird. And the fact that everyone there COULD speak Finnish, but CHOSE only to speak Lappi, because they think everyone else is just a southern barbarian.

But all that having been said, it was fun. Which is, I see, more than you could say for quiddich camp. Not surprising.

Gahh. My brain is still in Finnish mode. I'd written a few lines before I realised that I was writing in Finnish.

I still haven't adjusted to there being a visual difference between night and day.

See you on Saturday.

Scorpius.

After packing my books, I wrote a response.

From: .com

To: .com

Subject: RE: [none]

Hi Scorpius.

I take it from your recount that you're as pale as ever?

I have to say that the Dethklok stuff was good. I'm now mildly addicted to Metalocalypse. My mum, however, disliked the directions in which my music taste is heading. She's worried I'll dye my hair black and get multiple piercings. You're lucky your parents are so open minded.

My dad still cringes whenever the word Slytherin is mentioned.

And now Anthrax is walking all over the keyboard. So I assume she says hi.

Rose.

Picking up Anthrax, I walked downstairs, only to find aunt Ginny and mum getting ready to go 'out'. Namely leave the kids at home and go paintballing. And of course, that meant that James and Albus would be there for a while.

"Albus, can you go and talk to Hugo for a while?" I asked.

'I was wondering when this would happen.' He muttered as he walked upstairs.

"Guess who I talked to today."

"The pope?"

"Close enough. Teddy and uncle George. And what do you imagine they said?"

"Judging by the fact that you're asking in that tone, I'd have to say they'd told you about a little speculation I'm engaging in."

"Too bloody right they did. What the HELL were you thinking?"

"Oh lighten up Rose. Everyone knows it's inevitable except you."

"You are such an asshole." I said as I made my way upstairs.

"It doesn't stop me from being correct, does it?" James called after me.

I had a new email.

From: .com

To: .com

Subject: RE: RE: [none]

Seriously, Rose.

I'm out in sunlight twenty four hours a day for a few months and you think I'm going to still be pale at the end of that?

You're right, though. I'm more tanned than before, but that's not saying much. I now approach normal skintone. Barely.

And the only reason I have free reign to listen to metal is because my mother's Finnish. Finland is the home of metal. My dad's more into Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa. He's also worried I'll dye my hair black and get multiple piercings. Especially after my cousin Elin did just that.

Tell Anthrax I say hi to her too.

I am so unbelievably tired. I've been awake for about three hours and I'm practically asleep again.

See you on the train.

Scorpius.

Faced with the choice of talking to James or lying on my bed doing nothing, I chose the latter.


	5. Chapter 5

"Yes, I'll write. Often. In detail."

"Alright Rosie. You'd better get on the train."

My parents then focussed their goodbyes on Hugo. I carried my trunk onto the train and made for the prefects compartment, where I saw Scorpius.

"Guess who got prefect!?" we said in unison before high-fiveing.

"You've grown." I commented. Scorpius, who had never really been short, was now over six feet tall and incredibly good looking. Good for him.

As the train pulled out of the station, Professor Longbottom appeared from practically nowhere and started talking.

"As you are all no doubt aware, you are now prefects. As prefects, it is your job to make sure the younger students don't set fire to anything. Otherwise, there's pretty much no change. You'll be making your way up and down the train, ensuring that no acts of pyromania are taking place. Now all I have to do is give you the passwords to your respective common rooms and you're off. So. Griffindor? Albus and Lucy, the other prefect, went off to be told their password and then to start policing any would be flame throwers. Next went the Hufflepuffs, then the Ravenclaws, and finally us.

Professor Longbottom seemed to be having trouble keeping a straight face.

"Your password for the year is…" he almost dissolved into laughter. "Sorry about that." He said, regaining composure. "Your password is 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts.'"

"You're joking, right?" asked Scorpius.

"Sadly not. Traditionally, the Bloody baron has always decided on the password, and it seems that over the holidays he discovered the joys of Monty Python."

"Oh. Good. God." Was all I could say.

"Off you go. Reassure first years. Tell older students the password to save them needing to wait for the first years. Stop fires. That kind of thing."

"Sure thing, Professor."

As we left the carriage, Scorpius muttered with disgust 'Coconuts.' We glanced at each other and cracked up. Walking down the train, in the next carriage, we found the most of the Slytherins in our year.

"Rose!" squealed Alice, jumping up to give me a hug.

"Hey Alice. Hey Laura. Hey Alex. Where's Rae?" I asked noticing there were only three other girls in the compartment. "And where's James, for that matter?"

Everyone in the compartment raised their eyebrows and then indicated the compartment across the hallway.

"You're kidding." I said.

"You don't mean to say that his 'The name's Bond. James Bond.' thing actually worked." Said Scorpius.

"Sadly, it did." Remarked Peter.

"It seems their families went on holiday to the same place and things went from there." Said Alex.

"Well. That was unexpected." Was Scorpius' rather stoic response. I was trying my hardest not to laugh.

"Oh, guess what guys." I began, trying hard to keep a straight face.

"What?"

"The password is 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts.'"

There was dead silence for a moment, followed by

"You're kidding, right?"

"Sadly no, Laura."

"Sung or in monotone?"

"I'm not sure."

"It could be worse." Remarked Alice.

"Oh yes?" was the general concensus.

"My dad said that when he was at Hogwarts, they had Sir Cadogan guarding the tower for a while."

Everyone groaned. We'd all been abused at some point by Sir Cadogan.

"He decided that the password was to be the song 'the Knights of the Round Table' from Holy Grail, and it had to be sung in full harmony in order to be granted access. At another instance, it was 'Drood Lives' from 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood'. Problem was, no-one had ever heard of it. Then there was the Trojan Horse monologue from 'Yes Minister'. How he managed to find all that eighties pop culture while in Hogwarts, I don't know."

"You're right." I agreed. "It could be worse."

"Barely." Muttered Ben.

"We need to be off, stopping fires, according to professor Longbottom. He's under the impression that we're all a bunch of pyromaniacs." Said Scorpius.

"In his defence," I replied as we made our way down the carriage, "he did go to school with my uncles Fred and George. That would traumatise pretty much anyone."

"I've heard some stories about them…"

"Oh they're true."

"Even…"

"Yeah."

"But you didn't even…"

"If you've heard it, it's true."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

This would have continued for a while, had we not come across the other members of the Quiddich team. The senior team – fifth through seventh years consisted of four people following the graduation of the seeker, keeper and a beater. The remaining team members were John, James and Josh – sixth year triplets who all played chaser; and Richard, in the seventh year, our other beater who I assumed was the new captain, and was immensely proud of the fact that he was nicknamed 'the third'. I was on the junior team along with Scorpius – beater; and Alice – seeker. It was more or less assumed that we would trial for, and then get into, the senior team this year, leaving vacancies for younger students to fill. There was also a first year team, but they were generally hopeless, and no-one really mentioned them. They existed to play on Saturdays when no-one else was playing.

"Hello." Said Richard with his characteristic dryness.

"Hey. Who's that?" I asked indicating a small and rather scared looking girl sitting next to Richard.

"It's my little sister Prudence."

"We've been asked to tell you not to start any fires." I began.

"And the password is the first line from the coconut song." Finished Scorpius.

"As in 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts'?" asked Prudence.

"That one." He said, rolling his eyes.

"Nice." Said John, James and Josh in unison, high-fiveing each other.

"Good to see you two are prefects." Said Richard. "I was worried they'd give it to that James Bond kid. He can't seriously think that pickup line works."

Scorpius and I glanced at each other and cracked up.

"Oh god. It didn't. It can't have." Lamented Richard.

"Oh but it did." Said Scorpius.

And so went the train trip. Talking to people, telling them the new password, laughing, continuing. I talked to Hugo, we discussed the weirdest things we'd seen so far on the train with Albus and Lucy. The fact that James' pickup line had finally worked proved no end of amusement for anyone.

When we passed the compartment in which James was sitting with some of his friends, their talk ceased abruptly, causing me to send a death glare at James. He just raised his eyebrows and flicked his eyes over to Scorpius, who was standing behind me. I mouthed 'I'm telling your mother'. He lowered his eyebrows. I wouldn't actually tell aunt Ginny, because then she'd tell my mum, and then mum would tell dad, and then I really would be confined to a nunnery.

When it came time for sorting the new first years, there were no major surprises. No family dynasties were broken up, and soon it was time to lead the first years off to the common room. They were TINY! There was no way I had been that short when I first came to Hogwarts.

"Alright, Slytherin first years." Began Scorpius as we led the ten little newcomers down the same twisting flights of stairs as we had first navigated as eleven year olds. "At Hogwarts, they're rather lax about discipline."

"Except for fire." I continued. "There is to be no flame throwing, no bonfires, and no burning of effigies. Otherwise, as long as no-one gets dismembered, and a teacher didn't see it happen, it doesn't matter."

"That having been said, this conversation never took place. If, for example, a teacher asks you why you just turned your friend's hair blue, you are not to say that we said it was alright. Because we will find you."

"And actually dismember you." I finished.

We continued much in this way until we were nearly at the entrance to the common room.

"Care to do the honours?" murmured Scorpius.

"You don't get out of it that easily."

"But it'll have a much better effect in your lovely high pitched voice."

"You ass."

"I do try. Regardless, I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. We need to come across as calm, suave and mature. My laughing until I'm bright red wouldn't help matters."

"Fine, but I'm busy plotting your doom in my spare time."

"Like I expected any less from you?"

By now, we were standing at the entrance of the common room, prompting a few odd looks from the assembled first years, as to them it looked as if we were standing in front of a blank stretch of wall.

"You have to do the introduction." I muttered.

"Fine." He replied before facing the little people. "This is the entrance to the Slytherin common room. You access your rooms through it. You do your homework here, and engage in what little social discourse as can be managed in a school of less than three hundred students. Rose?"

He turned to me with a slightly smug smile. I drew in a deep breath and began. "There is a password that you will have to say in order to gain access. It changes every term, but it's easy enough to remember. This term, your password is 'I have a lovely bunch of coconuts.'" The wall opened when I spoke. The few first years who were familiar with Monty Python giggled. The rest of them just looked confused.

Walking into the common room with the first years trailing after us, we separated the boys from the girls, and then I took the five girls to show them their room.

"Alright, guys. My name's Rose, and if you have any questions regarding Hogwarts or anything related, feel free to ask." None of them moved. "Alright then: no fire, as already said, no sharp or pointy objects, no corrosives and most importantly no boys. I know you're a bit young for it now, but later on…" I trailed off. "Just no boys. And you're not allowed to bring people from other houses in. Otherwise, welcome to the snakepit."

Leaving them to their own devices, I returned to the common room where Scorpius was leaning against a column.

"Thanks for that. I practically had an aneurism trying not to laugh." I said, giving him a punch on the arm.

"I think you comported yourself marvellously." He replied, dodging. "The first years are really short this year, don't you think."

"Definitely." Said Richard as he walked through the wall. "I know I wasn't that diminutive when I first came here. And we've got quiddich training all day tomorrow. It's my year as captain, I want to go out with a win by a large margin."

"Sir." I responded in the most jaded manner I could manage, giving a half hearted salute.

"That's the spirit." He replied, just as drily. "Now go to sleep. I'll be holding trials to fill the empty spots on the senior team, and I expect you guys and Alice to get those positions. The last thing any of us need is for you to be out flown by first years. Think of the ignonimity."

With that he swept off, his robes swirling out behind him most impressively.

"It's good to be back." Scorpius remarked before following.

"You have no idea." I muttered before walking in the opposite direction towards the girl's lodgings. I walked in to find them interrogating Raeanne as to what had happened between her and Bond…James Bond over the summer.

Her explanation prompted much squealing from the rest of us. Following that, we embarked upon a discussion of how the boys in our year had infinitely improved in looks.

"Oh. My. God. Did you see how Bill and Ben had bulked up over the holidays?" began Alex.

"Rugby." Explained Alice. "They got accepted for some intensive training thing, and basically just did weights and played rugby for three months."

"And it shows." Responded Alex.

And so on. Time practically flew by, because when I happened to glace at my watch, it was half past one.

"Holy Crap guys! Do you know what time it is!?"

"Shit!" exclaimed Alice after checking her watch.

"Seconded." Agreed Laura.

"What's the time?" asked Rae.

"Half past one. You really need to get a watch." Supplied Alex.

"Did you hear about trials?" I asked Alice.

"No, what?"

"Richard the third booked the pitch for the whole day. There's going to be trials, and then, I assume, a shitload of training. He wants us in the senior team, but he actually expects us to be good enough. He wants a win this year."

"Of course he does. Thank god for caffeine."


	6. Chapter 6

At breakfast I saw Rose and Alice drinking coffee. Either they had each acquired caffeine addictions during the holidays, or they hadn't slept much. Judging by the grunts I received in response when I wished them good morning, I assumed it was the latter.

When the three of us arrived at the quiddich pitch, I was surprised by the turnout, given the fact that Richard had only announced trials at breakfast. Richard, John, James and Josh were separating people into groups according to the team they aimed to get into. It seemed that we were the only people trialling for the senior team. That made life easier. Six of the seven players from last year's first year team were back to trial for the junior team, which was reduced to three people after one of the prior members had torn a deltoid playing ice hockey, and another had split her calf and achilles tendon off the bone playing waterpolo, and nine of the ten first years had turned up to trial. The stands were surprisingly full: it seemed no-one had anything better to do on the day before school started than to watch quiddich training.

At nine on the dot, Richard addressed the assembled masses. It seemed that he had been practising his spiels. "The first thing we're doing today is flying around the school. I'll be leading, and the three Js will be looking for anyone who can't fly well. Should you pass muster, I'll start getting nasty. Any questions?" there were no questions. "Good."

At that point a strong wind sprung up. "Oh joy." I thought aloud. "Character building."

As we got into the air, Rose, Alice and I moved to the front of the pack.

"Holy FUCK it's cold." Shouted Rose over the wind. She, like myself, was wearing a singlet and shorts, our regular attire for wearing under our quiddich robes. The only difference was that now we weren't wearing the robes. I didn't find the cold too much of an issue, having spent the summer in the arctic circle.

"It could be worse." I shouted back.

"Oh yes?" yelled Alice. "How could it be worse?"

"It could be raining."

At that point I had to drop suddenly, as both Rose and Alice had steered their brooms into me.

After spending about fifteen minutes flying around the buildings, under archways, around towers and through the grounds, we came back to land in the quiddich pitch.

"I'm pleased to say that you can all fly." Began Richard. "And that's good, because that was really just a formality. Alice, Rose and Scorpius: you're on the team. Start finding out what positions the first years want to trial for, and we'll go from there."

Walking over to the huddle of first years, I looked them over. They really were diminutive.

"OK. So. Who wants to try for seeker? You really shouldn't bother unless you've played it before, it's not something you pick up overnight." Rose began.

Richard's younger sister, Prudence, put up her hand.

"How about beater?" no-one put up their hand. "Oh come on. Why not?" asked Rose, stifling a yawn. Clearly the caffeine hadn't worked as well as she would have hoped.

"Because it involves hitting dirty great balls of metal around. We're weedy little first years." Said a broad shouldered girl who was probably a swimmer, getting a few nods of agreement.

"Alright then." I said, getting an idea. "Everyone get on the ground and start doing pushups."

They did.

"Now start doing claps in between them."

Four of them continued. I let them just do pushups for a while.

"And one armed, starting with ten on your left."

Two of them tried, but their arms gave out almost immediately. The only ones left doing pushups were the girl who had initially spoken and the tallest one of the boys.

"Good. You'll do."

"Of you six," said Rose addressing those who had not nominated a position yet, "Who plays soccer, waterpolo, hockey of any variety or netball or basketball?"

They all put their hands up.

"And who played goalie?"

One of them put up his hand.

"So the rest of you played attack?"

They all nodded.

"You'll trial for chaser."

Taking them over to Richard and the second years, we told him who had nominated for what. Turning to them, he addressed them thus:

"You're going to be split up according to position and tested for specific skills. Beaters, you're with Scorpius and myself. Seekers are with Alice. Chasers and keepers, you'll be with Rose and the three Js. For those of you without any competition, as long as you exhibit some level of proficiency, you're on the team. As for the rest of you, get proving."

There was no competition for the beater positions, there being only the number of players needed. Even so, we needed to make sure none of them were total drop-kicks. So Richard, after warning everyone else that if they were hit by a bludger it was their own problem, divided them into teams of two and told them to try to hit each other with the bludgers. Alice had Prudence and the second year seeker looking for the snitch. Or at least that's what it looked like they were doing. Rose had the three prospective keepers: two second year and one first year, taking turns fielding shots from the one second year and five first year chasers.

Richard and I flew around, watching their progress and making sure no-one got hit. Because that would be bad PR. After a mildly boring half hour of watching them try to hit each other with balls of metal, when a bludger veered off its course towards a first year and instead headed straight for Rose. I was too far to yell a warning, and it seemed that Richard had noticed the same thing, as we both swore quietly at pretty much the same time.

Knowing there was nothing we could do, we still started flying in the general direction of the goalposts, as quickly as we could. Then when the bludger was about fifteen metres away, she swung one of her legs over the broom so that she was sitting sideways, and then as it was about to hit her, she leaned backwards so that she was hanging off the broom by her knees, allowing the bludger to fly over and make for its next target. The danger past, she reached up to the broom, uncooked her legs so that she was just dangling by her hands, and then swung herself back onto the broom, earning a smattering of applause form the people in the stands. Drawing up next to her, Richard patted her on the back saying "That was rather impressive. Where'd you learn that trick?"

"Quiddich camp." Said Rose with a shrug. "Fancy ways to avoid bludgers was about the only thing I learnt."

"And there we were thinking you hadn't actually noticed and were about to have your skeleton rearranged." I said.

"You were worried. How sweet."

"I try."

"That one," Rose began, indicating one of the second year keepers, "Has a far better save average. I'd say he's the better choice for junior. The first year's quite good considering he's a first year. I think the three Js have also worked out which of the first years are better."

"In all likelihood. I'll ask." Said Richard. To me he said "Stay here and make sure she doesn't get hit."

Rose made a rude gesture at his retreating form.

"Did they teach you any other equally impressive evasive manoeuvres?" I asked.

"Not really. That was the only fancy one. The others were for if we'd been hit and had resultingly lost the use of a limb, basically just to get us to the ground safely. It took me a week to build up the ab strength to get back onto the broom after I was dangling from my arms. But it is rather fun."

John, James and Josh flew to join us.

"Nice dodging." Said Josh.

"Quiddich camp." Replied Rose.

"We did that three years back. They didn't teach us anything that cool. It was all functional stuff for if you were injured." Interjected James.

"They didn't. One of the girls there, from that magic school in Ireland, was also an elite gymnast. She taught me because we were bored."

At that point Richard called everyone back to the ground. Teams were announced, the two remaining junior team members arrived and training began. And continued. And then stopped for lunch before recommencing for another six hours, at which point it was almost dark.

"Good work everyone. First game of the season is next Saturday, seniors against Gryffindor. Let's win it, shall we?" he was grinning madly.

I half led half dragged Rose and Alice away before they could start hurling curses at him.


	7. Chapter 7

"Aaaand writing implements down. This is the end of your Ancient Runes examination. You may now leave the examination room. Take nothing with you other than what you took in."

There was a pause as everyone sat, dumbfounded. Our last exam was finished, OWLs were over. At long last.

"As in leave. This is your last exam. Begone. Frolic. That kind of thing."

And still we sat. Mainly because professor Binns had just cracked a joke. I'm not saying he was boring, history of magic was actually a really interesting class, as long as you asked questions and generally showed interest, but professor Binns never joked. He thought it would detract from his dry and dull persona that he had so diligently crafted. He had a dry wit, but above all, professor Binns Did Not Joke.

"I give up." Muttered professor Binns and floated through one of the walls. Professor Richardson, the new ancient runes teacher, shrugged, flicked his wand, causing all the papers to gather themselves and deposit themselves in a neat pile in front of him, glanced at the still stunned masses, shrugged again, and then left.

"Alright, Rose. What say we get the hell out of here?"

I practically had to lift Rose out of her seat. She didn't seem to be handling the sleep deprivation well. She was practically asleep.

Slowly, everyone left the hall, some yawning, others contemplating suicide while they yawned. Outside the hall, waiting for us, was the rest of the quiddich team.

"Good to see you survived your OWLs." Said Richard jovially, clapping us on the shoulder.

"Why are you happy, Richard?" I asked. "Your happiness worries me. It makes me think you have something horrible planned."

"You are entirely correct to be worried. Now that your exams are over, the professors, in their infinite kindness, are giving you lot the rest of the week off so that your exams can be marked et cetera. I don't strictly need to turn up to class because NEWT exams are over. Resultingly, we're going to spend the next four days training up for the Quiddich final on Saturday. Won't that be fun."

"You sick bastard." Said Rose in a somewhat admiring tone.

"That's the spirit Rose. I'll see you on the pitch tomorrow morning nice and early."

As Richard walked off, Rose made a ride gesture at his back.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I hate Mondays." She muttered.

"No you don't."

"True. I hate how happy he was."

"I think you just need some sleep."

"You think?" asked Rose darkly. Which reminded me that she disliked sleep deprivation.

As we walked back to the common room, we started discussing the exam.

"The Ministry has really gotten morbid." Remarked Rose. "I mean how many people got dismembered in sharp detail in that last passage? Eight?"

"People were dismembered? That's not what I translated." There had, in fact, been eight dismemberments, but I decided to see just how wound up Rose was.

The answer was very. She stopped walking, her face drained of colour, and she practically fainted.

"You're joking, right?" asked Rose horrified.

"Yes. I didn't expect you to react like that."

"Are you joking? If I had failed my father would probably have a heart attack. And murder me. In that order."

"Why, might I ask?"

"To start with, there's the whole Slytherin thing. He's never really gotten over it. I think he takes the fact that I'm a Slytherin as a personal failure. The rest of the family have gotten over it, but dad and uncle Harry are less than thrilled. The fact that I (quote) inherited my mother's brains (unquote) is his only real consolation in my opinion."

Well that was a bleak outlook. I was trawling my brain for the right thing to say when we arrived at the common room.

"Sleep!" exclaimed Rose, heading straight for the fifth year girls bedroom.

I had to agree.


	8. Chapter 8

"And here we are at the interhouse quiddich cup grand final. As all of you have no doubt noticed by now, it is between Hufflepuff and Slytherin. If you had not in fact noticed that, then you really ought to start paying more attention."

Professor Longbottom, who was quiddich commentator, had a rather dry sense of humour. We were in the changing rooms, waiting to walk onto the field in a shower of glory and such. Richard and Scorpius were swinging their bats around, loosening up. John, James and Josh were reinforcing the idea that they could read each other's thoughts as they were passing a quaffle to each other, quickly, without dropping it… with their eyes closed.

"And the balls have been carried onto the court, yes I am entirely aware of the double entendre inherent, and now the teams are walking onto the pitch, although why I bother telling you that is questionable, as you can see them. But I digress."

We walked onto the field, as professor Longbottom had so accurately heralded. He was a very good commentator, as long as quiddich was actually being played.

"Professor Matthews is, as always the referee for this match. He is making the team captains shake hands. According to what I can lip-read, they are having a nice civilised conversation about the weather. And now the players are taking their positions prior to the beginning of the match. And they're off! One of the Slytherin chasers, I've given up on differentiating between them, is in possession of the quaffle, and is now passing to one of his brothers, again I'm not sure which…"

I tuned out the commentary, focussing instead on watching the quaffle possession. In my peripheral vision, I kept my tabs on the bludgers, and should I catch sight of the snitch, I was ready to signal its whereabouts to Alice. Richard had spent the holidays working out a system of hand signals to notify Alice of where the snitch was at any one time.

Five hours later, the score stood at 400-50, with us in the lead. John, James and Josh's proficiency as chasers meant that the quaffle seldom reached my end of the field. After our score hit 300, I started letting in a few Hufflepuff goals, because at a certain point, it really wouldn't make much of a difference to the scores. But really: five hours was a long time.

Eventually, at long last, a bludger came my way, and I occupied myself flipping about. And as it happened, while I was upside down, I caught sight of the snitch, hovering about 100 metres above one of my goal posts. Swinging back onto my broom, I called to Alice, and started signalling. I was watching her face intently to make sure she was understanding what is was signing from my distance. Because it's not like I was using semaphore or anything, it was an inexact science.

Suddenly I heard a nasty crunch, followed by a loss of sensation in my left arm, and then a lot of pain. So my arm was broken. Shit.

I hovered for a few seconds, experiencing the pain of my first broken limb, but eventually, I realised it would behove me to get to the ground. Concentration having been broken, I went back to listening to the commentary. All audience concentration had been focussed on the Hufflepuff goals, as the three Js continued to do their thing. Which was good, I didn't need anyone being distracted, least of all Alice, who was now chasing the snitch around.

The second time I was hit, there wasn't even a delay between the crunch and the pain. This one was to my left shoulder, and just the surprise of it knocked me off my broom, and it was only by getting into a sloth grip at the last moment that I avoided falling entirely to the ground. By now, people had noticed. Professor Longbottom was saying something, but the pain was a bit much for me to try to listen.

Then shock set in, which was a good thing, I suppose, because it meant that I was able to ignore my now immobile left arm, and focus on getting back onto the broom, and to the ground. I was about to swing back onto the broom when…

Ouch.


	9. Chapter 9

Five hours is a long time to be flying around. Admittedly we had been training all day for the past week, but training didn't involve the stress of an actual game. Five hours of quiddich final was hardcore stuff. I felt somewhat sorry for the people watching. Five hours of watching the same thing over and over again was probably rather boring for them as well. After three hours, professor Longbottom's voice gave out, so the role of commenting was handed over to Rose's cousin, James, who was the Gryffindor captain.

It was actually rather entertaining, as he merely lamented the performance of the Hufflepuff team. After an hour of that, he moved onto contemplations of theoretical physics. He was relieved of the megaphone. Forcibly. By professor McGonagall, the headmistress. Even in her mid seventies, she exuded an aura of 'you waste my time and I'll waste you.' rumour had it that she was retiring some time in the near future, but that was somewhat doubtful. She wasn't going anywhere. The megaphone was given to the Ravenclaw quiddich captain, who began speaking with cool efficiency, and immense speed. It was almost as if he didn't need to breathe between sentences. But I digress.

I was scanning the field for bludgers, hovering within hitting range of the Hufflepuff seeker and keeper, while Richard stayed on their beaters. Rose was signalling something to Alice. At long last.

_She's hot._ Shut up hormones. _Oh come on. What are you? A monk?_ You so did not go there.

You can tell you're really sane when you start having conversations with your own brain.

_I so did go there. Just ask her out. What's the worst that could happen._

I had been experiencing these lovely bursts of sanity all year.

You want to know the worst? She doesn't like me that way and it gets really awkward between us. _Face it, boy, you're a hormone volcano._ I've managed to suppress these supposedly raging hormones so far. _Calm before the storm. _Says you. _I'm your brain. Come on. Do you really think I'm going to be wrong? I co-ordinate all this hormonal shit._ Was that a threat? Is my own brain threatening me? What's the most you can do? _Don't tempt me, boy. I'm capable of things you can't even imagine._ Judging by the fact that you're my brain, I'm reasonably sure I could imagine them, actually. _Fuck you, good brain. _

The less evil side of my brain was about to add insult to injury, when a bludger hit Rose in the shoulder, knocking her off balance, and leaving her hanging onto her broom in a sloth grip, with her left arm just dangling in a remarkably not good manner. I was about ten metres away when she was hit again, in the chest with a crunch I heard with worrying clarity. She let go of the broom and began falling.

I was close enough to catch her, it turned out she was unconscious, and deposit her on the stretcher one of the teachers had conjured to take her to the hospital wing. As I was laying her on the stretcher, she started coughing, and I felt droplets hit my face. Wiping them off, I saw that she was coughing up blood. That was an incredibly bad sign.

At about that time, Alice caught the snitch, enabling us to finish the game. After the fastest post-match shaking of hands and formalities, the rest of the team made for the hospital wing as fast as we could. Outside the unexpectedly locked doors of the hospital wing, we caught up with Rose's brother and cousins.

"What happened to her?" Rose's brother Hugo asked.

"I saw her take the shoulder hit, and when she was hit in the chest, there was a crunch. And she was coughing up blood by the time I got her on the stretcher."

"Shit." Was James' reaction. "That's a punctured lung, which means at least one broken rib, and did you see the way her arm was dangling?"

"That'd be a crushed collarbone at the very least, possibly a fractured shoulder socket." Came Richard's response.

"I just don't get why the door's locked." Said Albus.

We waited outside for another fifteen or so minutes, when Madame Pomfrey unlocked the doors and allowed all of us in. The ten of us (myself, Richard, John, James and Josh, James, Hugo, Albus and Lily) were led to the bed where Rose was lying, unconscious.

"I she going to wake up?" asked Lily, which had been what I was wondering, and judging by everyone else's expressions when she asked, I hadn't been alone.

"Yes, I just had to ensure she was unconscious before I started repairing bones. Bone and organ repair is painful business, especially when you're as injured as she was."

"What were the injuries?" asked Hugo.

"Let's see… five broken ribs, three of which had punctured her right lung; two radial fractures; a broken ulna; eight separate breaks to her collarbone, which had more or less been compacted in on itself, and four fractures in her shoulder socket. As well as extensive bruising. I fixed all the breaks and fractures, and her lung, but I left the bruising as a bit of proprioceptive awareness. One of you inform me when she wakes up."

Madam Pomfrey walked off towards her office.

"Mum and Dad are never going to let her play quiddich again." remarked Hugo.

"Hogwarts doesn't write to parents to inform of injury." Interjected Richard. "They only notify parents of death."

"That's cheery." Said Lily.

"Let's just not tell the parents then." said James.

We lapsed into silence and merely stood around the bed, glaring at each other: Rose's family on one side, and the Slytherin quiddich team on the other.

Eventually, Rose opened her eyes, and swore with surprising fluency. Lily left to notify Madame Pomfrey.

"Painful, Rose?" asked Richard in an attempt to break the silence.

"The shock's gone and worn off. It irks me." Rose forced out through gritted teeth. "So what happened?"

"Five broken ribs, three of them punctured your lung, a break and two fractures in your arm, four fractures in your shoulder socket, and you broke your collarbone in eight places." Supplied James.

"No wonder it hurts." Remarked Rose.

Madame Pomfrey returned. "I assume by now you know what shape you were in."

Rose nodded. "When can I go?"

"When you can do ten push ups."

Everyone in the room except for Madame Pomfrey smirked knowingly. We all knew that Rose could do one armed push ups.

Rose got out of the bed, affording a better view of the bruising covering left arm, shoulder and collarbone, and the bruise that was already showing up black through her white singlet. Getting onto the floor, she did the required ten push ups, albeit only using her uninjured arm.

Madame Pomfrey was not amused, but conceded that Rose was repaired enough to return to her habitat. The rest of the quiddich team went off in different directions to tell everyone that she was alive, and her family went back to Gryffindor tower, after hugging her.

"No telling the parents." Rose called after them.

Rose slipped on her shoes, and walked out of the hospital wing with me standing next to her in case she passed out. Rose almost getting herself killed in a routine school quiddich match highlighted the fact that life was short. Hormones had won the argument, soundly defeating platonic chivalry.

The moment we were out of the hospital wing, Rose leaned herself against the wall, eyes tearing up.

"Are you alright Rose?" I asked, placing a hand on her uninjured shoulder.

Rose took a deep breath, swore, and decided on taking a few shallow breaths. Eventually she responded "Everything is painful. Standing upright is painful. Breathing is painful. The push ups hurt like hell. It's just pain."

"You had me really worried when you started coughing up blood."

"That explains a lot." Muttered Rose darkly, examining the bruising on her forearm.

"Come on, off to the common room. Once we're there you can feel free to collapse into an injured heap."

"I might just take you up on that." Said Rose.

As we walked, Rose tested the range of motion she had in her arms and torso. This involved much arm flailing and twisting around, punctuated by the odd obscenity and occasional involuntary tears. After a while, Rose said, offhand, "Thanks for catching me by the way."

"How did you know? You were unconscious."

"James told me."

"It's all part of the service."

Rose punched me lightly with her good hand.

"I didn't cough any blood onto you, did I?" she asked.

"Not much. I trust you don't have any horrible communicable diseases."

"Just syphilis." She joked.

"Well if that's all."

I paused. "Rose."

She looked up at me.

"I'm glad you're still alive." I said, and cupping her face with one hand, I leaned down and kissed her tentatively.

Although the tentativeness didn't last long. Rose seemed stunned for a moment, and then she hooked her arms around my neck, my hands went to her waist, and then we started really making out.


	10. Chapter 10

We were almost to the common room when Scorpius quietly said 'Rose.' I stopped and turned to face him – my neck and midsection were too bruised to allow any twisting, with my eyes still watering after an ill-advised overextension of my shoulder joint. Suddenly he took my face in one of his hands (they were really big now), leaned in and kissed me. It took my pain addled brain a while to realise what was happening, and another second or so to realise that it was nowhere near as weird and awkward as I had expected. The only real awkwardness seemed to stem from the fact that Scorpius seemed to be trying not to irritate my bruising, a rather difficult feat when you're pressed up against a wall in a deserted corridor, in the midst of what could only be described as the throes of teen hormones. It was a little too early to start calling it anything more at that point.

After what felt like no time at all, but in retrospect must have been a while, I heard a voice yell 'Get a room.' Followed by a slight pause, and then 'Holy fuck. Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing?' which warranted responses of muttered profanities. We broke apart, looked in the direction of the voices, and groaned. It was Richard with John, James and Josh. We were screwed. There was no way in hell they would ever let us live this down. Luckily, they all just seemed a little stunned. Raising my eyebrows at Scorpius, I walked towards the entrance to the common room, said the password ('it's the final countdown'), and entered the common room, where I was immediately accosted by the girls in my year, who I reassured that I was fine.

By then, my body had been abused enough. Groaning slightly, I trudged towards the fifth year girl's bedrooms and without even changing into pyjamas collapsed into bed and was asleep almost immediately.

The fact that I fell asleep at four in the afternoon had the nasty side effect of resulting in my waking up at four in the morning, incredibly stiff. After an very long, very hot shower I had enough muscle mobility to get dressed in the school uniform. No-one really bothered wearing the robes except for special occasions: they were impractical, not to mention a hazard in the more hands-on subjects such as potions.

By then it was five in the morning, and I had nothing to do. The final having been on a Sunday, I had classes, but they only began at nine, and even then, the chances of actually being taught anything after the completion of OWLs were negligible to nonexistent. Regardless, I was awake, sore, and bored.

Having nothing better to do, I lay down on the floor, stretching my arms above my head, and suppressing the profanities which tried to escape as my shoulder ground around in its newly healed socket. The pain was painful. Although marginally less painful than standing up and having to remain upright. It turns out that what seems effortless is actually the product of numerous muscles tensing themselves. Each of which I could feel. Painfully. Bloody proprioceptive awareness. At least stretched out on the floor I only really had to concentrate on breathing. Which was also painful. Apparently Madame Pomfrey had left me another little reminder not to be hit three times by a bludger. The fact that only a week of school remained was some consolation: I could go home and spend a few weeks lying on my bed doing absolutely nothing. Closing my eyes, I lay there, listening to the silence around me. And then my brain started playing 'Sounds of Silence' on an endless loop in my head, which somewhat detracted from the moment.

Soon someone lay down next to me, close enough for me to feel the ambient heat radiating off them. Not bothering to open my eyes to see who it was (I had my suspicions, but certainty helped), I tried to identify by smell. But that kind of thing only works in books. All I could tell is that the person smelt like boy. My suspicions were entirely confirmed when the person next to me took one of my hands in his, interlacing our fingers.

"You're up early." I remarked drily.

"I know. It's aggravating me. I woke up at half past three, looked at my watch and then told my brain to fuck off, what right had it to wake me at such an inhuman hour. I woke up again at half past four, by which time I accepted the fact that I wasn't going to be getting more sleep. I disgust myself sometimes with my sheer alertness."

"I woke up at four. Not surprising since I fell asleep at four yesterday."

"So you decided to lie on the floor of the common room." Whilst syntactically a statement, Scorpius phrased it like a question.

"Lying on the floor is less painful than standing up. Not to mention the fact that it was all silent and peaceful until you came in and interrupted my Zen moment."

"I interrupted your Zen moment?"

I raised an eyebrow, although the gesture was probably somewhat lost on him, judging by the fact that we were both staring at the ceiling. Or at least I was, mainly because turning my head was – you guessed it – painful.

"It seemed more like you had a song stuck in your head, and replacing it with 'Master of Puppets' wasn't working like it usually did." He continued.

"I was using 'No Leaf Clover' actually. 'Master of Puppets' only works for speed metal."

Scorpius snorted.

"What?" I asked.

"I've turned you into such a metal head."

"You love it." I pointed out.

"True." He said, sitting up and then leaning over to kiss me.

"Ouch." I eventually said. It seemed that my body wasn't in the mood for any of this tomfoolery, serotonin rush or not.

"Sorry." Was Scorpius' somewhat sheepish reply as he removed himself from the somewhat compromising position we were in (don't worry, it was all rather PG, it just would have looked rather misconstrueable to anyone who happened to see us.) "How's the bruising?"

"Painful. Colourful. Well actually it's more monochromatic, as you can see from my arm. The rest of it is really rather the same. I would show you, but that would necessitate the removal of my shirt, and I don't exactly think we're at that stage as yet."

Scorpius turned to me with an eyebrow raised and an arch smile. "That can be easily rectified…"

"Contain yourself." I half laughed. But even weak laughter aggravated my lung, which caused me to start coughing, which in turn caused even more pain. I tried sitting up, but all that did was make my muscles protest. After what felt like ages I finally stopped coughing, and not trusting my respiratory system, took slow, shallow breaths until the pain was somewhat lessened. Inspecting my bruised arm, I wondered aloud "maybe if I hit this against a wall enough, shock will set in…"

"That probably wouldn't be the brightest course of action." He pointed out, lightly taking hold of my injured arm. "I almost thought you were about to start coughing up blood again. I got pretty freaked out the first time."

"I doubt that's going to happen again. Madame Pomfrey fixed up the holes. She just left the bruising there as a bit of a reminder never to pull that kind of stunt again."

"I suppose you mean using yourself as cannon fodder? I don't especially want you to try that little experiment again either."

"I my defence, I didn't actively try to get the shit bashed out of me by a bludger. It just happened."

"I'm not even going to comment on that statement, Rose."

I groaned. "I have to send some kind of notification to my parents as to what happened, otherwise they'll completely freak when they see me."

Scorpius stood up and offered me his hand to pull me up. Which was a good thing due to the fact that any variety of movement caused my bruising to make its unhappiness known. Although by the time I was upright I had far too much kinetic energy as I immediately toppled forwards onto his (as it turned out) nicely muscular chest. But the impact was painful. It was a pity Hogwarts didn't dispense painkillers. I really could have used some ibuprofen fortified with a little codeine. Although in retrospect, students on low doses of opiates using magic probably wouldn't be the most intelligent of ideas.

Walking over to one of the tables upon which I had placed paper and pen (not feeling quite up to actual brain function, I had opted to lie on the floor for a while first), I sat down, took the top sheet of paper and the pen and wrote _Dear mum and dad_.

Looking at Scorpius who was sitting next to me, I asked "Now what?"

Scorpius looked thoughtful for a moment. "It's not really possibly to phrase it nicely, is it."

"Not in the slightest. And it's not like I can just write 'I got the crap bashed out of me playing quiddich, and now it looks like I was used for cannon fodder, see you in a week.', can I? They'll probably decide not to ever let me play quiddich ever again."

"Well it's not like you can nicely segue into it. 'Exams are finally over and I've grown an inch and a half and by the way I'm covered in bruising.'"

"Probably not." I remarked. Then a stroke of genius hit. "I know! I can distract them with some other news… but what…" I gazed around the empty common room aimlessly, before resting on Scorpius. He raised his eyebrows. "Best not to risk it." I said.

"Risk what?"

"I could definitely distract my parents by saying 'I've got a boyfriend', but that would result in my being confined to a nunnery for the rest of my life. Never mind the fact that I'm not catholic."

"How about this: 'dear mum and dad. We won the quiddich grand final, which was fantastic. It was such a long game, blah, blah, blah,' give a rather boring blow-by-blow of the game, and finish off with something along the lines of 'I got hit by a bludger, which was annoying, so I'll be a bit bruised when you pick me up next week.' That should serve to somewhat cushion the blow. Or if you're really lucky, they'll get bored and just give up reading halfway through and not even find out."

"Until they see me in a week's time at Kings Cross."

"You can burn that bridge when you get to it."

"I suppose." I said and got to writing the letter. I pretty much gave a transcript of what I assume professor Longbottom would have said, and glossed over the whole getting hit by a bludger bit. As I wrote, Scorpius played with my hair, which was becoming ridiculously long. I really needed to get it cut during the holidays. The final product was three pages long, and interminably boring. By then it was a quarter past seven in the morning and the common room was starting to be filled by the earlier risers. Generally the first and second years who had not yet learned the joys of sleep. "Shall we unto the owlery?" I asked.

"Let's."

I winced as I stood up and gingerly made my way into the hallways. As soon as we were out of the common room, Scorpius took my hand in his, which pleasantly gratified my hormones.

As we walked, he said "Just think. We only have to get through another week of being prefect."

"At last!" I agreed rather fervently.

Prefect duty had been, to put it lightly, a bitch. Having to balance all the things we had to do as prefects on top of getting good marks so that we could study the courses we wanted next year had led to very little sleep, not to mention all those times I ended up listening to the tears of the older girls.

Scorpius, whilst woefully unequipped for dealing with such situations (being a boy: they wouldn't talk to him), stuck around nonetheless, citing solidarity. Once he had sat there watching me console three seventh years, all of whom had been dumped by their muggle boyfriends who were having trouble with the long distance thing. Four and a half hours later, after finally managing to calm them down and convince them that it wasn't in fact the end of the world, they had gone off to quietly cry themselves to sleep, and I, emotionally drained and really starting to hate prefect work, had curled up into a ball and burst into tears.

He had just hugged me and waited for me to finish venting. That week had been a particularly nasty one. I had numerous assignments, a first year had gotten her period and completely freaked, Rae and Bond… James Bond had been having a major disagreement over something or other making small talk amongst my year mates rather toxic, James (my cousin) was being a complete ass whenever he saw me and Scorpius in the same room (which was more or less every time he saw us), a fourth year had broken up with her Hufflepuff boyfriend after she discovered that he had written rather nasty things about her on the wall of one of the boy's bathrooms, and Richard's normal sadistic bastardry had been augmented by the torrential rain which had persisted throughout that week. The seventh years had been my tipping point.

Throughout my outburst, Scorpius had just been saying, 'it's alright. It's alright.' Useless, but nice of him all the same.

"I was just remembering that time when you burst into tears after calming down those hysterical seventh years." Said Scorpius. "It's the only thing I could think of that could make you hate being prefect so much. I'm surprised that you didn't snap earlier or more than once. I was so close to kissing you back then. I was just a bit worried you'd hex me into the next month."

"I probably would have." I giggled. "I was feeling pretty murderous at the time. I swear my mum didn't mention having to go through this kind of thing when she was prefect. I mean my dad didn't say anything, but he's always been a bit oblivious."

"I still think you did fantastically. My cousins have labelled me 'the useless stoic'. Apparently I just stand there with a stiff upper lip and am useless when it comes to emotional stuff. They're positive Eton stuffed up my emotional processes. It's all humorously British in their opinion."

"Your cousins sound so cool. If mine were any more garden variety, I swear they'd be a bunch of gnomes."

"And here they happen to be." Remarked Scorpius. "Seemingly planning to murder me." he added.

Looking up, I saw James raising an eyebrow, Albus raising both eyebrows, Hugo looking dumbfounded and Lily looking entirely unsurprised.


	11. Chapter 11

Rose, unlike myself, seemed unworried that she was about to be torn limb from limb by a mob of her overprotective relatives. But then, she wasn't the one they were no doubt contemplating the murder of. That was me.

Rose, of course, was far more worried about her parents finding out, saying "If any of you sent a letter to your parents, I will hunt you down, kill you horribly, and then make it look like suicide."

"Why would any of us dare risk your wrath, Rosie?" asked James somewhat smugly.

"It would be a real pity for you to have gone to all the trouble of seven years of school only to be murdered before graduation James."

"Come now. I'm entitled to inflict a bit of good natured irritation. And anyway. We came here to let you censor what we're sending home."

"Did any of you mention anywhere bones breaking?"

"How stupid do you think we are, Rose?" Asked Hugo on a manner that suggested his was not an uncommon question.

"Just checking. Thanks guys." She attached her letter to Spike and was turning to leave when James spoke.

"And, uh… how long has… this…" he indicated her, then me "Been going on?"

"Why whatever do you mean." Drawled Rose, practically twirling her nonexistent moustache as she spoke.

"Again, how stupid do you think we are?" asked Hugo.

"Since yesterday." Reported Rose coolly. "And I'd really appreciate it of this didn't reach home either."

"Don't want to be sent to a nunnery, Rose?" asked Albus.

"Not fervently." Then a feather irritated her sinuses enough to cause her to sneeze, which irritated her lungs and caused a rather violent coughing fit which somewhat worried her family.

When she calmed herself enough to breathe normally, something which took about a minute, she waved off her brother's attempts to send her back to the hospital bay, and decided instead to 'mince off to the common room'.

When we were out of sight, I took her hand and pulled her closer.

"I really thought for a moment that they were going to kill me." I said as we walked.

"So did I." admitted Rose. "I didn't want to alarm you so I decided not to mention that minor issue."

Not having a suitable rejoinder for that, I resolved to stare at her, gobsmacked.

"You didn't want to alarm me, so you didn't mention that minor issue." I confirmed.

"What!?" exclaimed Rose. "I didn't!"

I shook my head and continued walking. We were near the entrance to the great hall when we were accosted by none other than Richard MacRichards himself. I was overtaken by a sudden desire to maim him horribly. These hormones were funny things.

"Rose, I am so sorry about—" he was hut off by Rose.

"It's fine. I'm alright, as you can see."

The Hufflepuff in him wouldn't let it go.

"But you were so injured."

"And now I'm all fixed up."

"But I injured a girl. That sort of thing just isn't on."

Rose sighed. "To begin with, that is disgustingly chauvinistic. Furthermore, now that I've been good and bashed up playing quiddich, statistically I won't be fantastically injured again for a while to come. No blood, no foul."

"But you had a punctured lung." He argued. "Surely that constitutes blood."

"The phrase implies external blood." now Rose was arguing semantics. She'd have him beaten down soon enough. She was somewhat terrifying when it came to grammar. Earlier in the year we had engaged in a half hour long debate as to the proper deployment of the subjunctive in a phrase someone had said before we realised just what we were arguing about.

Sure enough he backed down.

Walking into the hall for breakfast, Rose muttered "Chivalrous ass."

I chuckled and threw an arm around her soldiers, earning a few raised eyebrows from around the hall. One of the Ravenclaw sixth years yelled "It's about bloody time."

It seemed that much of the school had been waiting for this. Joy.

"You know the worst thing about a school this small?" Rose asked as she took a bite of toast.

"Enlighten me, o ginger one."

She shot me a glare before continuing. "Gossip spreads fast." She finished, looking around to indicate the numerous pairs of eyes directed at us.

"They'll get over it." I reassured. "It's just been a slow couple of months what with all the exams we've had. Soon enough it'll be holidays, and they'll be bombarded by the joys of the outside world."

"James is going to be hell all holidays."

"He did seem to expect my busting a move, didn't he." I mused.

"You so did not just say bust a move." Rose giggled. Reattaining a sense of decorum, Rose cleared her throat. "I found out off Teddy that he actually had a betting pool going as to when the penny would drop for us. I spent the entire year trying to ignore how hot you've become."

"I've been suppressing hormones since halfway through last year."

"Funny how all this was sparked by horrible gory injury."

"For you." I muttered darkly. I had a feeling I would be antsy whenever Rose went near a bludger for some time to come.

The last days of school came and went, and Rose went from being dark purple to being solidly black where she had been hit. The bruising on her ribs was clearly visible through the somewhat transparent school shirt.

On the first day of summer vacation, the day we were taking the Hogwarts express back to Kings Cross, I almost cracked up when I saw what Rose was wearing. After suppressing a rather pronounced urge to grab her then and start making out with her as if there was no tomorrow. She was wearing a floral patterned strapless summer dress which really accentuated her bruising. Other things too, but I was trying (and failing) not to dwell on them.

As we walked up to the entrance hall where we would be walking down to the station with the other students, I said "You're really going to wear that, aren't you."

Rose chuckled ruefully and put on a pair of sunglasses as we stepped outdoors. "I had promised myself that I would wear this dress on the first day of the holidays, and injuries be damned, I'm wearing it. Mum and dad won't be thrilled about the bruising, but such is life. They were bound to find out at some point."

"I'm really going to miss you over the holidays, Rose."

"I reckon. You're not going to Lapland again are you?"

"No. I'll be able to access the internet. And not be called a southern barbarian."

Rose broke off to yell at a seventh year who was conjuring great balls of fire. It turned out that Professor Longbottom wasn't being unnecessarily paranoid when it came to fire. Go figure.


	12. Chapter 12

The Hogwarts express pulled into platform 9 ¾ which was filled with parents come to collect their children at the beginning of the summer holidays. The first off the train had been the younger grades, who just couldn't wait to see their parents, having been away since Easter break.

Seventh years ran amongst each other, saying goodbyes, exchanging email addresses, promising to get Facebook and such. A few decided to act on latent attractions they had towards other students. Well just one actually – Richard Adams, known to his friends as Richard the third, grabbed Alice Spinnett-Wood and began making out with her rather passionately. Much to the amusement of her parents. And practically every student around them. After all, it had come as a bit of a shock.

That digression having finished; some of the last students off the train were the prefects. The Slytherin prefects, Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley, left the train with hands entwined. This fact, however, went unnoticed by Rose's parents, as there milled a multitude of students and parents between them. Rose scanned the station for her family – conveniently demarcated by their electrically red hair – but was unable to catch sight of them for quite a while as although she was 5' 6", hardly a midget, her bruising meant that any extension of her neck was incredibly painful and thus waited for the crowd to clear a little.

When she finally spotted the knot of her relatives, Rose turned to Scorpius and said "I've got to go. I'll email you." She then kissed him quickly and gave him as much as a hug as she could without aggravating her bruising.

Scorpius, on the other hand was having none of that nonsense, and said "One last kiss for the parents?" with a mischievous smile. Before Rose had opportunity to respond, he puller her towards him, leaned down, and engaged in a somewhat more lasting kiss than Rose's earlier one.

Ron Weasley, father of Rose, happened to choose that exact moment to look towards the train for sign of his daughter. He was less than thrilled with what he saw, for two main reasons. Firstly, his daughter, from what he could see of her, looked as if she had been engaging in boxing fights with trolls, bludger sized bruises adorning her left arm and shoulder. It seemed that she had somewhat gilded the truth in her interminably boring letter home about the quiddich final. The other main reason was the fact that she was rather engaging in a rather public display of affection with a boy whom he did not quite recognise, but had a rather strong suspicion of the lineage of. All in all, Ron was not thrilled.

Ginny, noticing her elder brother's rather thunderous look of shock, poked Harry and Hermione, before miming for them to follow her brother's line of sight. She could have given them the instruction verbally, but there were only a few moments that were pricelessly fully to an observer, and watching your overprotective older brother see that his daughter was not only badly injured whilst playing sport, but was engaging in…pleasantries with a boy when he himself had gone apeshit when she herself had engaged in…pleasantries with his best friend. The irony was somewhat convoluted, but no less sweet. Oh yes, Ginny Potter was enjoying this moment.

Ron's thought processes were at that moment only capable of something along the lines of _she… he… quiddich… hidden… kissing…bad_

Hermione had guessed that something along these lines was going to take place at some point. She had worked out that her daughter liked someone at school over the Easter break, but hadn't been quite sure who. She had entertained suspicions, which were now being confirmed, and overall, she was more or less happy that she had at least chosen someone clean cut, even if she didn't quite approve of the music he was introducing her to.

Harry had no opinion. He was subconsciously thinking_ that's what happens when you get sorted into Slytherin._ Things hadn't changed there.

Rose's school aged cousins, wondering what their parents were watching so intently with faint looks of mild disgust on their faces, looked at what they were looking at, saw what they'd been seeing all week at school, and went back to whatever they had been doing previously.

Eventually the amorous teenagers broke apart. Rose walked over to her family, and Scorpius his. As she walked, Scorpius thought to himself _that's no doubt going to make her first discussion with her parents rather interesting. _

He was right, but that will be examined in more depth later.

"Hullo Scorpius." Said his mother, Paivi. "Your father is in Uganda doing who knows what – he'll be meeting up with us once we are in Suomi. And we are visiting your grandmother this afternoon, so for heaven's sake try to get rid of that loopy hormonal smile. You know how it is when it comes to anything to do with your social life."

Scorpius smiled to himself. He knew only too well.

And now for the more depth promised some two paragraphs ago. Rose returned to her family, hugged her parents, aunt and uncle, and then walked with them to their cars, dragging her trunk behind her. By then she was more or less positive that the car ride home was going to be an interesting one. But it was worth it. The band joke 'brass players are better kissers' was definitely true.

Hugo, sensing that the mood was getting a bit dark, engaged in banal chitchat with his mother until they arrived at the carpark. Once they were all in the car, Ron spoke. "You were hit by a bludger, but don't worry, you weren't really hurt?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, as did Hugo. They were the more easygoing ones of the family. Rose and Ron were wont to conflagrate every so often. This looked like it was set to be one of those times.

"I may have doctored the truth slightly so that you wouldn't worry."

"What precisely did that bludger do to you?"

Rose could see that there was no way to smooth this over, so she decided (albeit somewhat subconsciously) to vent her frustration regarding her father's continued aversion to all things green and snakelike. "Let's see… the first hit fractured my radius in two places and broke my ulna. The second hit was rather more painful, breaking my collarbone in eight places and pretty much crushing it in on itself, as well as cracking my shoulder socket in four places. The third hit was the really bad one, breaking five ribs and causing three of them to puncture my right lung. I was knocked unconscious and thus off my broom. Scorpius managed to catch me and thus prevent any further damage. Apparently I was also coughing up blood, but as I said, I was unconscious. Did I miss anything, Hugo?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that was all of it." Responded her brother, really wishing Rose hadn't brought him into it. He was fine for her and their dad to have the massive argument they had been building up to for the past few years, but he'd really rather they do it when he wasn't around. He didn't like conflict.

"And you didn't think you should tell us that?" asked Ron, his voice starting to rise slightly.

"No, I didn't. Because I knew you'd overreact just like this." Shot back Rose, her voice rising as well.

"My daughter could have been killed, and I'm overreacting if I don't just take it on the chin!?"

"Worse happened to you while you were at Hogwarts. That wizard's chess thing when you were eleven." Rose said with an inflammatory upwards inflection. "That time you were poisoned in your sixth year. The numerous splinching incidents when you were on the run in your seventh year. I'm fixed up but for a little bruising. You're still missing a chunk of arm."

"That's beside the point. I told my parents about that at the first available moment."

"So that's what this is about? You think I'm not telling you anything?"

"You're not, Rose. What was that on the platform?"

"I don't know." Responded Rose rather acidly. "What did it LOOK like?" by now they were all but yelling at each other.

"I don't want you seeing that boy."

"Why the hell not!? Is this just some bizarre continuation of the fact that you can't accept that I'm in Slytherin?"

"No Rose, this is a continuation of the fact that I'm your father, and you're too young to be engaging in that kind of thing."

"Oh PLEASE. Like you weren't 'engaging in that kind of thing' from an earlier age. Aunt Ginny fairly regaled me of stories from your time at Hogwarts."

"This isn't about me, Rose, this is about you."

"So it's fine for you to uphold openly hypocritical double standards in my case merely because I'm a girl?"

"I don't want you getting hurt."

"Come off it! You just don't want me anywhere near him because he's a Slytherin. It gets in the way of your denial."

"Rose, during these holidays you are not going to see him. You are not going to contact him. I can't do anything about Hogwarts, but so help me, I am not going to let you engage in this kind of thing at home."

Hermione thought Ron was being a bit harsh, but knew better than to point it out. He would calm down soon enough and seek to make amends immediately after. He always did.

They elapsed into stony silence for the rest of the car ride.

Upon arriving home in Ottery St. Catchpole, Rose, who had stared murderously ahead for the rest of the car trip, jaws locked together, pulled her trunk out of the boot, walked inside as soon as Hermione unlocked the door, ran up the stairs – no mean feat with a trunk – flopped onto her bed as soon as she was in her room and burst into tears. Not because she couldn't live without him; just because her bruises hurt, and physical pain lowered her emotional threshold. The stress of arguing with her father had more or less drained her.

Hugo, walking up the stairs at a much more normal pace, walked past the closed door of his sister's room, heard her listening to Within Temptation (her 'upset' music) and heard muffled crying. He knew better than to offer consolation. In this kind of mood she was likely to hex him rather horribly. He walked into his room, dropped off his trunk, walked downstairs, left a note for his parents who were having a heated discussion outdoors and travelled via floo to his aunt Ginny and uncle Harry's house. As already stated, he disliked conflict.

Hermione too disliked conflict, but damned if she was going to let Ron act like a total prat. Yes she wasn't thrilled by the fact that Rose had kept so much quiet, but that was no excuse to effectively ground her.

"Ron, that was a bit unreasonable. Rose is able to look after herself."

"That's not the point 'Mione. She's going out with Malfoy's kid."

"And…" Hermione prompted, not making the same connection Ron had made.

"I don't want her getting hurt."

Hermione joined the dots. She was less than impressed with his reasoning. "To start with, I'm sure he's a perfectly respectable boy. Secondly, Draco isn't evil, remember? And she can look after herself. Should this not end with a happily ever after, such is life, she'll get over it. And if it does, stopping her from contacting him over one summer is not going to change anything. You can't just ground her for liking a boy."

Ron sighed, roundly defeated. "I'll go talk to her."

Hermione smiled to herself. She was still able to out-argue him, even after all these years.

**A/N: the next chapter will also be in third person – it makes multiple perspectives so much easier.**


	13. Chapter 13

Ron climb the stairs and made his way to his daughter's room. Inside he could hear quiet tears, and what sounded like a symphony orchestra supporting a metal band coming out of her computer. Music these days. When he'd been young, everyone had listened to pop-punk rock, or had been into the Beatles revival.

He knocked on the door softly. "Rose?"

He heard and felt something thud against the door. Otherwise, he received no response. Trying the door, he felt something was lodged against it. Deciding against forcing the door open magically, Ron resolved to try again later. And try he did. Hermione too. And Hugo. And over the next four days, so did the rest of the extended family. By then Ron and Hermione were getting a bit worried. Rose had been leaving her room only when completely necessary, and had been refusing to talk to any of them when she did.

On the fifth day (oh my, that sounded rather biblical), George, his wife Caitlin, and their adopted son, Teddy came for a visit. Caitlin had just returned from an assignment in Serbia. It turned out the UN wasn't the only international organisation which made use of magic – the ICJ used magic to find locations of mass graves and such to help with the prosecution of war crimes.

"Hello all. How's things." Asked Caitlin.

"All's well, apart from the fact that Rose hasn't talked to any of us for the past five days – she's barely left her room." Was hermione's matter of fact reply.

"Why the seclusion?"

"She and Ron had a rather major argument on the way home from the train. She'd gone all teen angst on us."

"And you let her?" Caitlin laughed. "Give me fifteen minutes." She promptly disapparated. Immediately from above came a scream of 'HOLY SHIT'. So she had popped up in Rose's room.

"She'll deal with it." Said George confidently.

"But will her solution be merely verbal, or will their by pyrotechnical coercion going on?" asked Ron.

"I prefer not to think about that kind of thing." Was George's reply.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Caitlin had been forced to conjure a shield to block the large book Rose had thrown at her the moment she apparated into her room. Rose had been hanging upside down on the chin up bar she had suspended from her room's high ceiling, doing crunches while she read.

Taking the book from where she had been levitating it, Caitlin looked at the cover whilst Rose dropped to the ground. "You're reading Les Misérables?"

"It's interesting." Was Rose's reply.

"If you find a hundred page segue describing the battle of waterloo in its entirety, with accompanying strategic commentary interesting, then yes, I agree."

"Hi aunt Caitlin." Rose gave her favourite aunt a hug.

"Apparently you haven't talked to any of your family since you got home?"

"I was really pissed off. Dad was being completely overprotective."

"I was told that much when I got here. What was it you were fighting about? Nice bruising by the way." She added, noticing the black patches on Rose's skin.

"Quiddich accident." Responded Rose. "Which was part of it. I may have somewhat neglected to write home and say I was practically bludgeoned to death by a bludger. And then there was also the fact that dad has a massive issue with my boyfriend."

"And when did that happen? I have been so out of touch thanks to Serbia."

"How was that, by the way." Asked Rose. Caitlin grimaced. Rose continued "Pretty much as soon as I was allowed out of the school's hospital wing." She said in response to the question.

"And why does he have an issue with this boy? He doesn't have piercings, does he?"

"No. I do have standards. Dad just had an issue with his dad when they were at school, and then there's the whole Slytherin thing which dad still hasn't gotten over, and it all really snowballed, and both of us are pretty unstoppable when we're angry, and he's basically cut me off from all modes of communicating with him throughout the holidays. So I decided to get all teen angsty."

"You didn't stop to think that perhaps he realised that he had completely overreacted, and was willing to be rather less hardassed?"

"Well yes," came Rose's frank reply, "But by then I was having so much fun being an angsty teenager that I decided to keep going. I spent most of the year listening to crying six and seventh years sob about whichever boy dumped them, merely because I was the prefect and I looked nice. A bit of sullen teenage behaviour was nicely refreshing."

"Delightful, Rose. Nonetheless, your angsty period is over. I'm sure your father has gotten over the draconian measures, and if not, just come over and use our internet." She checked her watch. "Not bad." Levitating away the chest of drawers Rose had shifted in front of the door, they walked downstairs, to see Ron, Hermione, George, Teddy and Hugo all drinking tea. Because that's what people in Britain and the dominions tend to do: drink tea.

Upon seeing them enter, George looked at his watch and said "That was quick."

"I estimated on the side of safety."

"Sorry about the sullen teenager bit." Rose said to her parents, before pouring herself some tea.

"I wasn't actually serious about a communications ban, by the way Rose." Said Ron.

"I hear you were injured rather horribly playing quiddich." Said Teddy. "As far as I can see, you were. Care to elaborate?"

Rose regaled the war story. As soon as they left, reminding them to come to the 'start of the holidays' shindig at Harry's, Rose repaired to the internet. Teen angst was far too labour intensive. She was far too exuberant a person to stay sullen for more than a few days without putting in concerted effort.

**A/N: there were a few oblique references in there which you won't really get unless you've read another one of my fics: and George.**

**Whilst I'm not usually for cross publicity, it will make this chapter and possibly some more in the future make a lot more sense.**


	14. Chapter 14

In retrospect, I probably should have put a bit more of a concerted effort into getting rid of the slightly loopy hormonal grin. Although the kiss was well worth it. The formalities had barely been dispensed with – 'Hullo Narcissa' (from both of us – she insisted that gran made her feel old. She was only 55, after all.) 'Hello Paivi. Hello Scorpius. Come in. Good heavens you've grown!' etc – when she turned back to look at me, scrutinised my face in incredible detail, smirked slightly, and then said "Who's the girl?"

In a fit of idiocy, I begged ignorance. "What girl?"

Mum closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Narcissa laughed. "That's exactly what your father said when he came home after first meeting your mother. Of course he was older, but he still had the somewhat far off loopy grin you had a moment ago. And darling, the fact that you went slightly pale when I asked somewhat belied your supposed ignorance. So. Who is she."

We sat down in the living room and one of the house elves appeared with tea. "Come on, Scorpius. I get precious little amusement from young love these days." She said as she poured tea.

"Well," I began, "she's in my house – she was the other Slytherin prefect this year. We're on the quiddich team together—" I was at that point cut off by Narcissa.

"What's her name."

Oh yes. I'd forgotten about that. "Rose Weasley."

"You don't seem especially heartbroken to be separated from her for the next three months." Came Narcissa's somewhat calculating remark.

At this, mum laughed. "He'll get to that. Right now he's just riding on a high from their rather…passionate farewell."

Narcissa raised an eyebrow. "That explains a lot. Just how passionate was their farewell?"

Something told me that my services were no longer needed for this topic of conversation.

"That they knew what they were doing was evident." Was my mother's response. I looked at her in horror. "It was." The horrified look remained in place. "There are some things you don't ever want to hear your mum say. Your belief that we 'knew what we were doing' was definitely one of them."

"For heaven's sake Scorpius. If you can't take the heat, don't play with the dragons."

I stayed quiet.

"As I was saying," mum continued, "They were suitably…you know…that her father looked apoplectic."

They both chuckled.

"She's a rather pretty girl." Mum continued. I stared blankly into the middle distance. It was like a train wreck: I couldn't look, but I just couldn't look away. "A good chunk shorter than him, but he's six foot four, what would you expect. Bright red hair, badly bruised. Why was that, Scorpius?"

"Quiddich accident." I said. Narcissa indicated me to keep going. "We were five hours into the final, and she got hit three times by the same bludger. And she managed to stay on her broom through the first two hits. She only fell off after the third because she was unconscious."

"Well, she's got spunk." Said Narcissa, turning again to my mother, giving me the impression that I was no longer necessary for the purposes of the conversation for the time being. It was somewhat unnerving being discussed in the third person.

**And INTERLUDE!!!!!!!!!**

Oh good god. Laura and Moona had followed Elin's example, dying their hair black and growing numerous piercings.

"Scorpius!" They said in a rather disconcerting unison before each hugging me in turn.

"Hej hej." I responded. Mum and I had arrived in Oulainen, and were being enthusiastically greeted. Mum by Melissa, her sister, I by my cousins.

"Do you have jet lag?" asked Laura in Finnish.

"We apparated. My brain still thinks it's in Britain."

"Good. Elin has her driving license. Let's go to the beach. You have a lot of talking to do."

That didn't bode well. On the surface, it was a completely innocuous proposal. The problem was that the nearest beach was in Kalajoki, an hour's drive away. Clearly mum had been talking to Melissa on the phone. Laura was incredibly skilled at listening in on conversations.

We were in Elin's car, pulling out of the driveway when Moona started the interrogation.

"Who's your girlfriend?"

"A girl from school."

"You think? What's her name? Age? What does she look like? What does she do in her free time? What music does she listen to? This is us finally being able to make you really uncomfortable: you don't have a sister to do it for you."

"Thanks. I replied acidly. Her name is Rose, she's fifteen, red hair, blue eyes, freckles, relatively short. She plays quiddich and listens to metal."

Elin shrugged from the driver's seat. It seemed that she approved.

"It's about time." Said Laura. I looked at her, somewhat confused. "You really think we didn't notice that you spent half your time here last summer emailing some girl?"

So that was why they had spent a lot of time looking at me, exchanging significant glances and then cracking up last summer. It had become a touch weird.

"How did you know I was emailing a girl?"

"You didn't delete the browser history."

Oh. Oops.

**And another interlude!!! I really need to focus harder on not just jumping to the bits in which stuff happens.**

Dad had just returned from Uganda, which was once again in the grip of a particularly nasty military dictatorship. I didn't know what it was exactly that my dad did for the UN, but it tended to involve going places where a the political turmoil had gotten somewhat out of hand.

I had been wondering why it was that Rose's father had seemed about to burst a vein in his forehead when he had seen us kissing. Even factoring in the excessive over-protectiveness Rose would occasionally complain about, that was a slightly unexpected reaction.

"Dad, I got the vibe that Rose's father thinks I'm the spawn of Satan. Why?"

He sighed and then responded. "There are in all likelihood three reasons. To start with, you were engaged in a rather… inappropriate farewell with his daughter. Then there's the fact that you're in Slytherin. I sometimes work with one of Rose's aunts, and apparently Ron still has issues with the fact that his daughter is in Slytherin. He probably took it as a personal affront that not only was she sorted into Slytherin, but she's dating one as well. and then there's the fact that I'm your father. Rose's father and I … didn't get along at school. We completely hated each other, to be entirely truthful. The time we grew up in was a pretty dark age, our prospective families thoroughly disliked each other and we had been raised to more or less hate each other. He's probably less than thrilled that his daughter likes you."

Well. That explained a lot. "Why are you so ambivalent towards him then?"

"Ask my mother about Bella." He looked somewhat uncomfortable so I dropped the subject.

Later on, as I was emailing Rose, I decided to see what magigoogle had to say about 'Bella'. I came up with nothing. Just a few links regarding a teen romance involving vampires and werewolves. Probably not what he meant. I asked Rose. Her answer the next day had been that she'd asked her mum, who had claimed ignorance, but had gone pale and was no doubt lying. Curious.


	15. Chapter 15

The holidays had been boring. Actually, no: they hadn't been boring per se, just slow. OWLS had arrived (straight Os, mum and dad had been thrilled); cousins had been visited; visits had been reciprocated; I had gone to a prep school reunion, only to spend the whole time lying through my teeth about school so as to not arouse suspicion. Interestingly enough, it had turned out that Millicent Lawrence, one of the girls in my class, had turned out to be a witch. Noticing that she too was 'At a boarding school' which was 'really rural and small, that's why no-one's heard of it', I took her aside and asked if she was at a magic school. She was at Druidswood in Ireland. That had made the reunion far less awkward, as we just talked to each other for the rest of the evening. Having gone off to boarding school for the last five years, we had grown somewhat apart from everyone else.

Otherwise, nothing had happened. I had reconnected with Milli, and I had spent a lot of time helping out at uncle George's shop with Teddy (school holidays were the busiest season and it was either work or sit at home moping. I had never figured myself for one of those girls who constantly misses her boyfriend, but he was an insanely good kisser).

Eventually the last week of the holidays rolled around, and preparations for back to school started. I was at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, along with Teddy and Victoire (due to Aunt Caitlin's work – something involving the UN – she and Uncle George never really saw each other. Thus contracting the nieces and nephews.), who were stealing glances at each other, and generally being really in love. It was getting grating.

After serving a bunch of customers and then looking up to see that they were in the same position they had been in five minutes earlier, gazing into each other's eyes, I snapped. "It is nauseating, having to be around you two. What the hell? You can't just contain yourselves? Get a ROOM!"

Victoire smiled, muttering 'Someone's in a long distance relationship'. I smiled as well, but still retorted with a rude arm gesture. "Young love." Said Teddy, in his sagest voice. Feeling markedly immature, I threw a Fursploding Puffskein at him: a little ball of fluff the size and look of a Puffskein which (as the name suggested) fursploded on impact, growing to the size of a beach ball. Teddy caught it, not noticing what I'd thrown, and was knocked backwards by the fursplosion and onto Victoire. Teddy poked the fursploded Puffskein with his wand, which returned it to its original size before throwing it at me. I dodged, which saved me from a fursplosion, but caused my bruising to hurt from the sudden movement. Three months on, the bruising had faded to pale purple, disappearing in patches, but it still hurt. Aunt Caitlin, who had a muggle medicine degree, said it was because the internal bleeding which caused the bruising took up to six months to dissipate. Joy. Picking up the beach ball sized Puffskein, I threw it back at Teddy, not allowed to use magic to shrink it myself.

Noticing that supplies of skiving snack boxes were running low, I went to the basement storage to get another crate. Adding the snack boxes to the already existing display, I was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. This was somewhat perplexing, as Teddy and Victoire, had they desired my attention, would have thrown a Fursploding Puffskein at me, any of my friends from Hogwarts would have tackled me with a hug, Milli had already been in to visit with some of her school friends, and Scorpius was still in Finland. Straightening up, I turned around and was immediately enveloped in a tight hug from Scorpius, who as it turned out was no longer in Finland.

"Ouch." I said as my bruising voiced its discontent.

"It still hasn't faded?" he asked.

"Deep tissue bruising takes about six months to heal completely." I said, quoting Aunt Caitlin. Of course she had also called me an idiot numerous times for not ducking, but that was irrelevant.

Scorpius winced in sympathy. I pushed aside a strand of hair which had been blocking my vision (I had washed it that morning, and my ridiculously long, ridiculously straight, ridiculously red hair took hours to dry at the best of times so I had left it out), only to have him put on hand behind my head and another around my waist, pulling me towards him for a rather thorough kiss. He had grown again – I was stretching further upwards to put my arms around his neck. He was also tanned, but I knew from experience that the tan would fade. And from what I could feel, he was also more muscular. Swoon.

Eventually we broke apart, and Scorpius straightened, stepped back, took a deep breath, and (Eton schooling no doubt getting the better of him) said "Good heavens that was inappropriate. Sorry about that. I just wanted to say that I'd missed you."

"I think you conveyed that pretty damn well." opined Teddy from the other end of the shop. Spotting three Fursploding Puffskeins on the floor near me, I picked them up, motioned for Scorpius to get out of the way, and immediately threw the three of them in quick succession at him and Victoire who had been holding back giggles which prompted them to duck for cover, laughing. Scorpius flinched slightly as they fursploded. It was a bit surprising the first time you saw it.

"That was uncalled for." Said Victoire as she prodded the Puffskeins.

"Hardly." I replied. "Teddy had it coming. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Victoire shrugged, and then turned to serve a customer.

"Remember how I asked you if you knew anything about 'Bella'?" asked Scorpius.

"Oh yes. I got the feeling that my parents thought I had stumbled upon some big dark secret."

"I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the second wizarding war, but other than that I haven't got a clue. Anyway, dad told me to ask my grandmother. She's willing to tell me, and she also said that she wanted to meet you."

"She wanted to meet me." I was incredulous. "How does she know I even exist?"

Scorpius looked a little uncomfortable. "Mum and I visited her as soon as we got to London. She took one look at my face and asked me who the girl was. Then she and mum had an incredibly awkward discussion regarding my social life."

"Ah. Right. When does she want to see me exactly?"

"When are you free?"

"I can con my parents into believing that I'm spending tomorrow with a friend from prep school." I said considering the options.

"Awesome. Meet me at Kings Cross tomorrow at nine."

"What's the likelihood this'll explain why my dad actually warned me not to get too friendly with you on our first day of school?"

"It should give you some idea. Not to mention why mine seems to have given up on the whole enmity joint."

I noticed that Teddy was keeping an eye on us. I sighed. "Teddy's making sure we don't do anything overtly hormonal."

Scorpius smiled wryly. "See you tomorrow." He said, with a rather lasting kiss.

He had barely left when Victoire swooped in with the Spanish inquisition.

"My, my. Someone left out details."

"What details?"

"All you said was that he was – to use your words – 'mad hot'. You didn't say anything about being at that stage of the relationship."

I was confused. "What stage?"

"You're joking, right?"

My blank look answered her question rather aptly.

"The 'must make out all the time in a rather inappropriate manner' stage. He looked like he was about ready to rip your clothes off."

Huh. Go figure. I hadn't noticed that. "How did you – Oh. Urgh."

**And now to my omniscient third person narrator:**

Rose had just realised how Victoire had picked up on that look. That was going to mentally scar her for quite a while. Teddy smirked from the counter.

"Teddy and I didn't reach that stage until I was seventeen." Said Victoire.

Rose, having finished replenishing the display, shuddered delicately, picked up the crate and carried it back into the basement. As she did so, she did the mental arithmetic which told her that in all likelihood the only thing which had prevented Teddy and Victoire reaching 'that stage' earlier would have been the fact that Teddy graduated when Victoire was fifteen.

Meanwhile, at ground level, Teddy walked towards Victoire. "We didn't reach that stage until we were seventeen?" They both knew that was a lie. "What about all those times when I was in seventh year…" he put his arms around Victoire, his normally turquoise hair darkening.

"They didn't count. It was the full moon." She retorted before standing on her toes to kiss him.

Teddy raised an eyebrow.

**And back into Rose's brain**

I walked up the stairs just in time to see Victoire and Teddy engaging in a rathe public display of affection. My nerves were still frazzled from my earlier kiss, and seeing them just highlighted to me the hormonal joy I had been missing all holidays.

"Get a ROOM, guys, seriously. Have a thought for propriety!" at that time, George and Caitlin walked through the door. "Thank heavens. They're nauseating." Getting my bag from behind the counter, I left after hugging them both. Walking over to the MOM, I rode the phone booth down to Magical Misinformation (the Ministry's PR voicebox, who made up stories for the muggle public to swallow to explain anything out of the ordinary) where dad worked.

"Hi dad." I said, sitting on the floor in his office and pulling out a book. I was reading Hannibal Rising – I'd originally read it when I was eleven, but now I could actually appreciate the psychodrama.

"I'm going to be here for quite a while, Rosie." Dad said, looking up. "The National Enquirer got wind of that idiot in Wessex who was making the streetlamps levitate, and they're like a pit bull when they've got a conspiracy theory to spread. Your mum was called in to weed out the weak from the latest batch of UN recruits."

"She's taking them through the Autopsy segment?" I asked. That was generally how they got rid of some of the prospective 'don't ask because I'm not allowed to tell' UN recruits. Not to mention the ones working muggle war crimes. Autopsy was a pop assessment. Basically they were taken through the autopsy of someone who had been magically tortured to death (it was a dummy, but they always thought it was real – it's amazing what magic can do), being shown the procedures and how you would work out how they had died. Vomiting meant an instant fail of the segment, which in turn meant an instant fail of the course.

Dad nodded somewhat absently. Deciding to take advantage of a little pre-emptive jurisdiction shopping, I casually told him that I would be hanging out with friends the next day. I knew dad would just nod vaguely, whereas mum would actually want to know who, what, where, why, whence and wheretofor. When under that kind of scrutiny it was difficult to maintain a flimsy cover story. Well did I know.

Getting up off the floor, I took a pinch of floo powder from the pot next to the fireplace and after a few moments of disorientation, I was at home. Where James just so happened to be, talking quiddich strategy with Albus (the new captain) and Hugo (who was better at strategy).

"Behold, the prodigal son doth appear." Remarked James in a tone of mock biblical rapture.

"I'm not even going to comment on the obvious idiocy of that statement." I responded, slapping him over the head. "And since when was I prodigal?"

"Asks the girl dating the Slytherin."

"Comments the boy with his head firmly lodged somewhere between his small intestine and pancreas."

"You cut me, Rose. You cut me deep." He said clutching an imaginary wound.

"What can I say, life sucks, then you get decrepit and die. Me being the bitch from hell just makes death seem that little bit better." I smiled sweetly before going up to my room. I wasn't welcome during quiddich talks: I constituted fraternising with the enemy. More's the pity. I could have told them that throwing the quaffle to where a chaser would be should they continue forward at the same speed so that they can catch the ball whilst at the same time travelling towards the goals would probably stop them from being beaten by Hufflepuff.


	16. Chapter 16

Rose stood outside kings cross station, thanking heaven that it was nowhere near as dodgy as the station of the same name in Sydney, Australia. Her aunt Caitlin had lived there for two years, and had discovered that rather unlike the Kings Cross in London, the one in Sydney was home to a rather large number of prostitutes, drug dealers and the occasional drag queen. Rose had engaged in much conversation with her aunt who was the closest thing she had to a muggle in the family. It helped her to continue to top muggle studies, and after all, for all that her mother was muggle born, she had been firmly rooted in the magical world, especially after she had spelled her parents to forget about her and move to Australia. Rose was still slightly fuzzy as to why her mother had decided to do that, but she had the sneaking suspicion it was to do with the second wizarding war, but no-one really talked about that.

Rose had attempted to hide her bruising as best she could – generally when meeting someone else's grandmother it was best not to do so looking like one had just spent a few years incarcerated in a Soviet prison for enemies to the Party. Generally one tried not to look like that when visiting one's own grandmother. As she had learnt when she had seen her grandma Molly who had immediately started reprimanding her son for letting his daughter get so injured. Grandma Molly was a force to be reckoned with.

Suddenly, Scorpius apparated behind a partition and walked out to meet her.

"My, my." Remarked Rose. "Someone's breaking the rules."

"Oh come on." Responded Scorpius. "Like you haven't done some illegal apparating yourself."

"That's beside the point. We're not even meant to know how."

"Half of our year already can."

"Yes, but the MOM don't know that, do they."

"Thankfully not. Otherwise we'd all be dead and in all likelihood expelled as well. But we're going to have to apparate to my gran's. There's no public transport whatsoever out there, and she took the house off the floo network ages ago."

They walked into a nearby alleyway, and holding hands, they turned on the spot and popped back into existence on the lawn of Malfoy manor. Rose looked around her at the lovely countryside.

"You're right. There wouldn't be any public transport around here."

"I did say that. I don't break laws just for kicks."

Rose raised an eyebrow archly.

Scorpius rolled his eyes and led her towards the door and knocked using the ornate knocker.

"No doorbell?" asked Rose.

"Are you kidding? Electricity was only put in twenty years ago when my grandfather died. He wasn't going to stand for any of that muggle nonsense. Ditto with a phone line and internet."

"Wow. That's not stuck in the dark ages at all."

"You have no idea." Said Scorpius, remembering the time he had asked his father why the tattoo on his arm moved. Draco had merely said it was because of his father. Even at twelve, Scorpius had understood the vibe that continued inquiry was unwelcome.

The door opened, and Narcissa gave Rose a quick look-over. _Well the girl doesn't look like a terrorist. _

"You must be Rose. Come in both of you. I'm Narcissa. My god, Scorpius, you've grown again."

She led them into the library, and walked down a row of shelves until she found 'A Wizarding Genealogy', a book which catalogued all of the pure blood families in Britain.

"So. How much do either of you know about the second wizarding war?"

"Not much." Responded Rose. "My parents tend not to talk about it."

"I didn't think so." Said Narcissa. She knew Scorpius knew markedly little about what had happened. His mother had been well away from it, and Draco wasn't entirely inclined to talk about it. "The short version is that the first wizarding war started when a dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, came into power and started gathering followers who called themselves Death Eaters. A nasty bunch who aimed to rid the world, starting with Britain, of anyone who wasn't of pure wizarding blood. There was much fighting, and eventually lord Voldemort was killed by an infant Harry Potter."

Rose's eyebrows Rose infinitesimally.

"Yes. Your uncle. The remaining Death Eaters were all rounded up and stuck in the maximum security wizarding prison of the time, Azkaban. Those who didn't prove helpful enough to the ministry by testifying against their fellows and such. That's how my late husband Lucius managed to escape incarceration. Anyway, thirteen years later, it turned out that Voldemort wasn't in fact dead, a fact which was demonstrated by his return. By the time the wider wizarding community had realised he'd returned, he already had a stranglehold on the ministry and was rooting out those who stood in his way.

"Sybil Trelawney, a seer whom I had attended Hogwarts with, had made a prophesy prior to Voldemort's initial fall which basically said that either he would kill Harry Potter, or Harry would kill him. The prophesy itself was held in the department of mysteries, and Lucius was sent to collect it. He failed, and was given the choice of either killing his own son, or giving him over to Voldemort's cause. We were reluctant, but there was no way Lucius was going to kill his own progeny, and so it went. Draco was the youngest person ever to be branded with the Dark Mark: a moving tattoo which could be used for Voldemort to summon his followers.

"Draco was a less than willing disciple. And neither was Bella. In the beginning at least."

Narcissa opened the rather large book to a page with the heading _The Oldest and Most Noble House of Black_, which contained a fold-out family tree which stretched back countless generations.

"The obsession with blood purity had a few side effects. The most notable one was inbreeding. When there are only so many families who could boast 'pure blood', the gene pool became rather small. As you can see, most of the families in this book were related in some way over the past five generations. It was sheer dumb luck that there wasn't some horrible gene mutation somewhere, otherwise there would be numerous extraneous limbs and appendages going around. But I digress. As you can see, Rose, your grandmother's and grandfather's families were related here" she pointed "and here, my own parents were second cousins (although we tended not to talk about that), and Lucius and I were third cousins. All this inbreeding led to a propensity towards mental instability. Generally bipolar disorder, although there was the odd paranoid schizophrenic, great Uncle Alaric for example, and occasionally there was someone who was both. And that was bad. And my sister Bella was hit by that shitstick, if you'll pardon the language.

"I had two sisters: Bellatrix and Andromeda. The three of us were less than thrilled by our parents' choices of name. None of our generation of Blacks were really, apart from my cousin Sirius, although he had a relatively normal name."

Pointing out people on the tree, Narcissa explained nicknames. "Our parents used our full names, but we all called Bellatrix Bella, Andromeda was Andi, I was Cissy, Regulus was Reggie, Sirius stayed as Sirius, our second cousin thrice removed, Rodolphus, who ended up marrying Bella, was Rudi and so on. Sirius and Bella were the same age, and got along quite well together. Sirius had Cyclothalmia, which didn't help relations with his family because his father thought he was just weak, which was a continuation of the fact that he broke the family tradition of being sorted into Slytherin. None of the parents were thrilled by that. For Bella, the bipolarity showed up when she was thirteen, Sirius' Cyclothalmia started exhibiting symptoms when he was fifteen, which was also when he left home. Bella didn't take that well – her closest childhood friend had been more or less disowned.

"Andi was the first to notice that something was amiss with the way Bella was acting, followed by Sirius. In her fifth year, Severus Snape, whose mother was related to the family here" she pointed "told us that one of the Hufflepuff boys in his seventh year potions class – he was in Bella's year but ridiculously talented – had a father who was a psychiatrist, and he himself was interested in the field. By then it was our best hope for her sanity, which thanks to the state of the family gene pool was somewhat suspect. Andi and Sirius convinced her to talk to Ted Tonks who in turn wrote to his father who said that she was bipolar. He somewhat illegally put her on a clinical trial of Lithium – I say illegally because our parents had no idea. They were studiously ignoring their daughter's insanity, hoping it would go away – and her symptoms started to disappear. And all was well.

"It wasn't long before even clueless second year Cissy noticed that Andi and Ted had something going. Of course Bella, wits returned noticed almost immediately, and could see that this wasn't going to end nicely. There was no way in hell our parents would let Andi marry a muggleborn. But there was still time to hope that nothing would come of it, after all, Andi was a fourth year at the time. We only really found out that something had come of it when Andi was twenty-two. Initially she was meant to marry Lucius, as our parents informed her one morning. They still believed in arranged marriages. Following a horrible argument, in which Andi dropped the bombshell Bella and I had been somewhat expecting for a while – that she was in love with Ted and they would marry her off over her dead body, she was also disowned. Our generation was turning out to be a troublesome bunch.

"She left, and stayed with Sirius for a while. Bella and I were told to forget about her, and under no circumstances to ever see her again. As if that was going to happen. We were both at her wedding, although to the day our parents died, we both swore that we had been visiting Rudi (they two of them had been engaged from just about birth – the fact that they liked each other was an added perk).

"Bella was married the summer after Andi, and I was married a year after. At about that time, the Dark Lord was beginning to amass followers. First Lucius joined – something I wasn't thrilled about: I was more or less ambivalent towards the pure-blood/muggleborn debate – then Rudi and Bella. I knew that this wasn't like Bella. She was just as ambivalent as I. Initially I thought it was just Rudi's influence – unlikely, judging by the fact that I had flat out refused Lucius' requests that I join up, and the fact that she was far more stubborn than myself.

"About a week after Bella had joined up, I found out why. At twenty-six the schizophrenia had hit. The moment she returned to lucidity, she realised what she had done, but by then it was too late. Once you joined, you were in for life. Not only that, but should you decide to opt out, first your family was killed, and then you were killed slowly and painfully. Half of the things Bella went to Azkaban for after the first fall of Voldemort she didn't do. When she was lucid, she did the bare minimum to escape detection as a non-believer, but when the voices were going at her…"

Narcissa sighed. "She did some incredibly reprehensible things. Whenever she returned to lucidity she was horrified. She was lucid during her trial, and she admitted to everything she possibly could, knowing that the only way she could ensure the safety of Andi, Reggie, Sirius and myself, our families and our friends, was to get herself locked up for good. In there she lost all hold on reality. She was my elder sister, and I loved her, but she was never lucid again.

"When she escaped after Azkaban fell, I could see that she was beyond help. Andi saw it too, and went into hiding with her family. Even so, Bella had far too much family loyalty to kill any of her blood relatives. Torture, yes. Mildly to moderately curse, yes. Maim, perhaps; but never kill. After the prison break, during the fight in the department of mysteries, she only stunned Sirius. The fact that he then fell through some portal to who knows what and where doesn't negate the fact that she didn't try to kill him. She also didn't kill Andi's daughter Nymphadora, regardless of common belief. I know she didn't kill Dora because Draco told me that she killed Dolohov – one of the other Death Eaters – for doing so.

"I should probably add the fact that Bella was Voldemort's second in command by then. Part of the schizophrenia was the fact that she had no sense of self preservation, and thus was nigh unstoppable in a fight. She took Draco's unwillingness to fight as a personal affront. She was torturing him whenever he 'failed her'. I found out about a week before the battle of Hogwarts. I put a stop to it, but by then Draco was just going along with the party line to ensure that Lucius and I wouldn't be killed. Luckily he's completely sane; otherwise it would have been the same story all over again.

"If nothing else, she cured him of the ridiculous ideas of 'blood purity' which Lucius had propagated in him. After Harry killed Voldemort, Bella assumed command. She was a natural leader – the first female quiddich captain in Hogwarts history. She rallied the remaining Death Eaters and kept fighting. I suppose it was somewhat lucky on my part that she crossed Molly Weasley's path. Molly was the only person who had been able to beat Bella in a duel whilst we had been at Hogwarts. If Molly hadn't killed her, I would have had to, because Bella would have no doubt worked out the fact that I had been lying when I said that Harry was dead."

Both Scorpius and Rose looked confused.

"Voldemort and Harry had a confrontation in the forbidden forest. Something happened, which knocked them both unconscious. I was sent to check if Harry was alive or not. He told me that Draco was safe, and I said that he was dead. My skill in occlumency came in handy because Voldemort actually believed that what I was saying was the truth. And he probed my mind. There was no way he was going to take any risks regarding Harry. When Harry later killed Voldemort, I have no doubt that Bella put two and two together."

"My mum looked as if someone had died when I mentioned Bella. Do you know why?"

"Oh yes." Replied Narcissa. "For a while, this house was the base of operations for Voldemort. Your parents and Harry were captured, and your mother, being muggleborn, was the first interrogated by Bella prior to their escape. And by interrogated, I mean thoroughly, thoroughly tortured. She was no doubt traumatised. Most people were after one of Bella's interrogations. Andi died of a heart attack after she found out what practically everyone believed – that Bella had killed her own god-daughter. The number of funerals I attended for family members in the aftermath of that battle…"

Rose and Scorpius were, for lack of a better word, gobsmacked. This entirely explained their parent's unwillingness to talk about their involvement in the war. Rose now understood why her mother had, at the age of seventeen, decided to alter the memories of her parents so that they wouldn't remember that she ever existed and had sent them to Australia. Scorpius now understood why his incredibly straight-laced father had a rather ominous looking tattoo, and why he twitched whenever the media discussed the Twilight series.

Narcissa saw that the mood in the room was somewhat subdued by the story. So she decided to rather violently change the subject.

"So, Rose. How did you two meet."

Scorpius cringed. Narcissa made the Spanish inquisition look squeamish.

**I know that my timetable is somewhat out of whack, but I'm not the strictest adherer to canon. I think it's all well and good for the basis of a fic, but if you wanted to read JKR's ideas verbatim, you'd read Harry Potter.**


	17. Chapter 17

"Seriously, dad, I have to go. The train will leave without me if I don't get on it right about now."

Dad was being irritatingly sentimental. After all, it wasn't like this was the first time I'd gone off to Hogwarts: I was starting sixth year. One would assume he was somewhat used to it by now.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't approve of, alright, Rosie?" he said as he gave me a final hug.

We both knew who he was talking about in relation to that statement.

I ran onto the train, Hugo, being the intelligent ass that he is, had gotten his goodbyes over and done with faster than I had. I was unimpressed. Although the fact that I was completely exhausted probably didn't help my mindset. I had gotten something in the vicinity of three hours sleep per night for the past five nights because I had been hijacked for girly time with Victoire. That had been somewhat traumatic. I swear I will kill the next person who tries to subject me to another Hugh grant romantic comedy or BBC Austen adaptation. Although on the plus side, when Teddy had interrupted, we had watched Hannibal Rising. It always helps to have a little bit of gore to keep you sane.

Somewhat exhausted after my tiny exertion, I staggered down the carriage until I found the compartment peopled by the other Slytherin sixth years. Seeing that the only remaining seat was next to Scorpius, I sat down, stifling a yawn. Or at least attempting thereto. Not to mention failing miserably, but what can I say. I was really unspeakably tired. The train began to move, inertia throwing me onto the seat. Scorpius put an arm around my shoulders, and too tired to do anything else, not to mention too tired to contemplate the repercussions, I rested my head on his delightfully muscular shoulder *swoon* and was asleep almost instantly.

The repercussions, when they came, were pretty nasty. Alice, Alex, Laura Rae and I were in our shared bedroom and hither came an inquisition which made the _Malleus Maleficarum_ look squeamish.

No, that's overdoing it. They just squealed for a little about how cute we were and then I fell asleep. It seemed that sleeping all day hadn't balanced my sleeping to waking hours ratio. I was mildly miffed that I had slept through finding out who the new Quiddich captain was. I was miffed further that I had forgotten to ask Alice. At least I knew that I would doubtlessly find out the next morning as the new malignant autocrat set out to prove their supremacy through gruelling training hours.

Bastards.

I was just lying down when I realised that my hair wasn't braided. I noticed that fact because when I lay my head on the pillow I noticed that I couldn't feel a ridge of hair down the back of my head like I usually could. I tended to keep my hair permanently in a tight French braid so as to keep it tidily out of my face (having incredibly thin hair, it had a tendency to fluff everywhere at any given opportunity). The only times my hair wasn't braided were when I was washing it – at the completion of which I would put my damp hair in a braid as a pre-emptive strike to it's getting messy – or when I was brushing it prior to braiding it again – I sleep with it done tightly to stop it from knotting in my sleep. I tend to leave it out when I've straightened it, but that takes ages, and frankly, I have better things to do with my time.

But I digress. From my being awoken minutes before arriving at Hogsmeade by Alice throwing a Fursploding Puffskein at me – which warranted a response of 'SWEET MOTHER OF FUCK, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!?' to our arrival at the dormitory, I had been pretty much asleep on my feet. The day long nap had allowed my body to realise just how sleep deprived it was – prior to this realisation I had just been running on adrenalin, endorphins and caffeine. Swearing wearily to myself, I ignored the lack of hairdo in favour of sleep: I'd just have to wash my hair the next morning in order to ease the knot removal. And my cognitive processes would no doubt be in slightly better working order by then. Hopefully.

They weren't. They were still sleep deprived, although by now it was mild enough for me to just tell my body to quit whining and harden the fuck up. As I had anticipated, my hair was a bitch. But after much muttering of obscenities, I got it back in order. Finally.

Dressed in the school uniform of skirt, tucked in blouse, house tie, mid-calf length socks and sensible shoes, I took out yesterday's copy of the times which I had brought with me anticipating a moment of boredom somewhat like the one I was experiencing. Turning to the crossword page, I set to work.

A few minutes later, my light was obstructed by something body shaped. Glancing up, I saw it was Scorpius, who was prevented from wishing me good morning by me rolling up the newspaper in one movement and hitting him over the head repeatedly with it.

"You"

Whack

"Ass!"

Whack

"Don't"

Whack

"Ever"

Whack

"Play"

Whack

"With"

Whack

"My"

Whack

"Hair"

Whack

"When"

Whack

"I'm"

Whack

"Asleep."

Whack.

Plans for further abuse were halted by a yawn so great that I practically fell over. But the moment it ceased, my attack recommenced.

"It"

Whack

"Makes"

Whack

"My"

Whack

"Hair"

Whack

"Ridiculously"

Whack

"Knotty."

Whack

"Do"

Whack

"It"

Whack

"Again"

Whack

"And"

Whack

"So"

Whack

"Help"

Whack

"Me"

Whack

"I"

Whack

"Will"

Whack

"Kill"

Whack

"You"

Whack

"And"

Whack

"Make"

Whack

"It"

Whack

"Look"

Whack

"Purely"

Whack

"Accidental"

Whack.

That pretty much proved my point.

"In my defence, Rose, you didn't put up much of a fight on the train."

Deciding that perhaps my point hadn't been completely proven, I hit him a few more times just to be certain.

"I was passed out with exhaustion. I could barely walk in a straight line. You really expected me to be working at full potential!?"

"Your hair is entertaining. You should leave it out every so often."

I yawned again before bringing up every single incident during our previous five years at Hogwarts when some poor unfortunate girl's hair had caught fire during potions, been seized by a plant in herbology, a creature during care of magical creatures, been caught in a hex during defence against the dark arts, or, most amusingly, been transfigured by professor McGonagall because she decided that it was a safety hazard. It was a hefty list.

Scorpius stood, stunned for a moment – probably wondering if I was going to hit him with the newspaper again, before I suggested that we go to breakfast. I needed some caffeine if I was going to get through class.

**A/N: 'harden the fuck up' is the catchphrase of Australian fictional thug Chopper Reid. **

**Best Chopper moment ever: 'This man's name is Stefan. Harden the fuck up, Stefan.'**

**Alternately: 'This man is drinking something called a mochacino. Harden the fuck up.'**

**There's also the Matty Johns spin off of 'The Biff' on the NRL Footy Show. But enough of this digression.**


	18. Chapter 18

One month into sixth year and our teachers were already being a bunch of psychotic zealots when it came to homework. Admittedly the piles and piles of essays were easy enough, if time consuming. I was sitting next to Rose in Arithmancy as we were being returned an essay on… actually, I'd completely forgotten what it had been about. It was about ten essays ago and my memory had better things to do than remember already completed homework. I received my essay. 97%. I looked at the comment.

_Try to be a touch less obsequious when writing future essays._

I could swear I'm not usually obsequious. I leaned over to Rose and muttered 'I'm not obsequious when I write, am i?'

Rose didn't respond because she was too busy holding her hand in the air ready to vent some concern. I glanced at her essay. 115%. Oh my. This was going to be long and drawn out.

"Yes Miss Weasley?" asked Professor Richardson.

"I request that you change my mark to something which is mathematically plausible."

"What's so implausible about 115%?"

"It's not the mark itself per se, it's the fact that out of a possible 100% I received a mark in excess thereof."

"And your problem with that is…?"

"It's impossible."

"It's perfectly possible. Zimbabwe manages to have an inflation rate of about 40 000% does it not?"

"Yes, but that's inflation. A mark is in essence a fractional value outlining the proportion of course outcomes covered by a piece of work with leeway for marker opinion. One cannot receive a fractional value greater than the theoretical maximum."

"The _theoretical maximum_. As you yourself said, this is not an established concrete maximum."

"I only said theoretical maximum because most people understand the tacet implication that although in some cases the maximum value can be exceeded, in cases such as this, the maximum simplified value of one cannot be breached."

"Perhaps, but as you also said, a mark is a fractional value outlining the proportion of course outcomes covered by a piece of work. You covered all outcomes and went on to analyse the theory of Relativity in terms of our classwork."

"That was because I was bored. Einstein is unrelated to our work, and thus marks shouldn't have been awarded."

"Out of curiosity, who is the teacher?"

"You, of course, sir."

"Exactly. Detention Sunday. Are there any other budding dissidents?"

Rose had that faintly murderous look in her eyes which meant that the moment classes were finished for the day, she was going flying. It was that or commit arson.

The preceding argument had been pleasantly diverting. So much so that I decided to continue it. Also the fact that Rose was grinding her teeth next to me because she had been silenced by authority.

"Incidentally, yes." I knew I was going to kick myself for this later.

"What's your figurative beef?"

"Along the vein being pursued by Rose, I agree with her. A grade is like the volume of gas within a spherical vessel at standard temperature and pressure."

"You're imposing a rather large number of conditions on this theoretical example."

"Spherical chickens in a vacuum, sir. Anyway. Once the maximum volume of gas has been placed in the vessel, more cannot be added without the equilibrium being upset. Marks are the same. Once a critical volume has been reached, in this case 100%, that volume cannot be exceeded without equilibrium being upset."

"Theoretically, yes, but there is no equilibrium in place."

"Yes there is."

"Enlighten me, Mr Malfoy."

"By violating the implicit assumption that a percentage mark awarded is another way of expressing a fraction with a limiting sum of one, you are violating an understood equilibrium which although not actually, is nonetheless agreed to exist between the student submitting work and their assumption of the future actions of the teacher marking the aforementioned work. It's the vibe."

"Detention for you too. Really, it's sad. What happened to all the sweetly idealistic fifth years I taught last year?"

"We suppressed them until they suffocated themselves in the black depths of our souls." Responded Rose in a vague tone, somewhat reminiscent of the characters in horror movies who just stand there and say things like 'he's coming for you'.

"I've noticed." He sighed. "All of you, just go and re-access your happy fifth year selves. The next person who injects a modicum of cynicism or obsequiety into their essays will be hanged, drawn and quartered: both figuratively and literally."

Rose, still looking murderous, picked up her things and walked quickly out of the classroom heading towards the common room. I picked up my things and followed her – she had been acting strangely moody lately, and I wanted to know what was going on.

Rose ran up the stairs to the girls dormitories, no doubt to dump her books and change into clothes more suited to flying than a skirt. I dumped my books on my bed and got changed, and re-entered the common room holding my Firebolt 5 just as Rose exited with hers. I ran to catch up with her and asked her what was wrong.

She told me to leave her alone and kept walking, albeit faster. So I followed her as she exited the school building into the torrential rain that had been falling all week, prompting the collective captaincy of John, James and Josh (they refused to say who had been given the role of captain) to (in a fit of softness) cancel quiddich until the rain let up.

The moment she was on the grass, Rose kicked off, and I followed suit.

"ROSE!" I shouted above the noise of the rain, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" she yelled back. "How difficult is it for you to just leave me alone." She accelerated in a bid for solitude.

"You know I'm not going to do that, Rose." I said as I flew over her to land in her path.

"It's nothing for you to worry about." She said with quiet fury in the moment when we hovered face to face before she sped off in another direction.

"You need to talk to someone, Rose. What you're doing isn't healthy."

Rose turned around and flew towards me, stopping about five feet from where I was. "What am I doing that you deem so unhealthy?" she asked icily.

"You're quiet, you're moody, you don't talk to your family and you've gone flying on your own in this ungodly weather every evening for the past week and a half. Clearly, something's up, and for some ridiculous reason you're not talking to anyone about it. Which is why you're here, attempting to obtain solitude by going flying until it's dark every night, because you can't handle on your own whatever is going on in your life. So what's wrong?"

"Just go away." She said as she flew away as quickly as she could. I followed, slowly gaining on her (she flew faster in a straight line, but I was faster at turning, and she was doing a hell of a lot of turning as she tried to lose me).

Eventually I came level with her I reached across and took her hand, and when she glanced at me I could see she was contemplating launching into a slaughterous rampage at my expense.

She pulled her arm out of my grasp and before I realised what she was planning, she flew through an open window not much wider than her shoulders. Once inside, I saw her shoulder her broom, check that I hadn't somehow made it through the same window, and then left the room.

Abusing myself mentally that I had gotten completely soaked for no reason whatsoever, seeing as Rose had avoided me by flying through a window, which admittedly had been an unforeseeable course of action. After all: who thinks of flying through an open window in order to get away from someone.

I flew to the ground, swore a bit as the ground squelched, and walked into the great hall where people were arriving for dinner. I saw Rose at the other end of the hall, already wearing dry clothing, talking to her cousins over at the Gryffindor table – she was the only Slytherin any of the Gryffindors tolerated – I sat down with the rest of our year group. Bill and Ben raised their eyebrows in unison when they saw how soaked I was.

"Don't ask." I responded to their unasked question.

**A/N: Anyone who watches the show 'Big Bang Theory' will be familiar with the spherical chickens in a vacuum joke. If you are unfamiliar with it, google the term, or check youtube.**


	19. Chapter 19

Alright, so I was being a bit of a bitch.

The issue was that I needed time to get my head around all the stuff going on at home, and Scorpius was getting all worried and thus wasn't just leaving me alone.

I was a touch stressed about sixth year (if we didn't keep up our performance in subjects we wouldn't be able to sit for the NEWTs) and then I got three letters from various facets of my extended family which made me wonder why the hell the didn't tell me a month ago when I was at home so that they could do it face to face. I mean they must have had an inkling of it a month ago, even if only to give advance warning to soften the blow.

Whatever. I supposed that I ought to give Scorpius a bit of an explanation regarding why I'd been acting out of character.

My conscience was starting to bug me. I had finished a transfiguration essay at about eleven, and had been trying to get to sleep since then. It was half past midnight and my conscience had been berating me for acting like such a bitch. Eventually, I gave in to ethics and decided to see if the mysterious forces of the Hogwarts castle only prevented apparition with a wand.

During the summer, aunt Caitlin had spent a few days teaching me the rudiments of wandless magic: partially because I had already mastered non-verbal and thus wandless was the logical next step, a step which Hogwarts didn't teach; partially because (as she pointed out) you never know when it'll come in handy.

I pulled out the copy of the Marauder's Map which Albus and I had made after 'borrowing' (and by borrowing, I mean temporarily misappropriating without his knowledge) the original from James.

As it turned out, all we had to do was activate the map and then politely ask it how it was made. Admittedly it felt a touch odd to be having a conversation with a piece of parchment, but by the end of that afternoon, both Albus and I had exact copies of the map. We then made some alterations, allowing it to focus on a single room, giving a birds-eye view of the placement of the occupants, in a manner somewhat akin to Google Earth: a marvellous invention which Albus, with one parent raised completely away from muggle technology, and another who more or less renounced the muggle world long before the internet came into play, had never heard about.

I then pulled up a view of the boys' dormitory. If I was going to talk to Scorpius, I had to get in without detection. Mum had told me that when she was at Hogwarts, she hadn't had any problems getting into the boys dormitories – girls could go wherever whereas boys couldn't get into the girls dormitories – as it turns out, Gryffindor had been a hell of a lot less of a prude than Slytherin, as practically the entire house had discovered last year when one of the seventh year girls 'accidentally' tried to get into the corresponding boys dormitory. The stairs had turned into a giant slide, accompanied by a somewhat unexpected deluge of water, the origin of which no-one had ever really worked out.

When designing the wards on the stairs (nicknamed the chastity belt by the previous lot of seventh years), Slytherin had however neglected to prevent any access which didn't involve setting foot on the stairs. In a desperate attempt to study for our OWLS when the common room was occupied all night by irascible seventh years who would brook no opposition while they were studying for their NEWTS, my year had hit on the idea that if our feet didn't physically touch the stairs, the stairs wouldn't know, a hypothesis we tested with the boys carrying the girls up the stairs into their room so that there could be collective cramming (we thought the fourth and sixth year boys would be the least likely to wonder why there were girls in the fifth year boys dorm than their female counterparts). Once we were up the stairs, it seemed we were past the risk of detection, as nothing happened once we touched ground in their dorm.

Thus, in order to get Scorpius (it was interesting that my ethics complex had no issue with waking him up in the middle of the night for a talk), I had to see if I could apparate myself straight into the boys dorm. That was where the map came in – I needed to have at least a vague idea of where I was meant to be going or it wouldn't work.

I focussed on the empty area in the middle of the room whilst concentrating on my occupying that space. I then blinked, and opened my eyes in what definitely wasn't the girls' dorm. A glance at the map told me I was in the sixth year boys' dormitory. Success.

Another glance at the map told me where Scorpius was, as well as the fact that the map was admonishing me for where I was. 'Naughty, naughty. What _would_ your father say.' was the message the flashed momentarily on the parchment. I smothered a giggle.

I walked over to Scorpius' bed, pushed aside the curtains and poked him. He awoke after a few pokes, only to look incredibly confused by the fact that I was there. "Common room." I whispered before closing the curtains and apparating to the common room.


	20. Chapter 20

Someone was poking me. Initially I tried ignoring it, and when that failed, I grudgingly opened my eyes. To see Rose, somehow in my dormitory. If nothing else, I knew that girls couldn't get into the boys dormitories without being carried there, and I couldn't see a Sherpa anywhere. So I was somewhat confused.

She merely told me to meet her in the common room and then closed the curtains surrounding my bed. After internally debating for a moment whether or not it was all just a very elaborate dream, I decided it probably wasn't, and got up after looking at my watch and swearing internally. It was half past midnight.

On the upside, it seemed that Rose was once again talking to me. I opened the curtains to see that Rose had disappeared. This was of course more ammunition for the side of my brain asserting that it was all just a dream and I should go back to sleep, but since I was awake I made my way down the stairs to the common room, which at first glance was empty. As, swearing internally, I turned to go back up the stairs, I caught a glimpse of something red on the floor behind one of the chairs.

Walking closer to get a better look, I saw that Rose was lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious. Running towards her, I checked whether she was breathing (because if she was breathing, it meant she also had a pulse and was thus alive). She was. I couldn't see any injuries, so I started weighing up the potential risks of enervating her.

Before I came to a conclusion, she however opened her eyes and sat up, looked at me and then merely said "Oops."

I raised my eyebrows before responding with "Please tell me there's some kind of logical explanation for all of this."

Rose merely raised her eyebrows and looked pointedly at my chest. Ah. Right. I had forgotten to put on a shirt.

I just looked pointedly at her pyjama pants, which depicted a Disney princess of unknown provenance. That was somewhat unexpected.

The whole pointed looks thing was getting a bit odd, and the fact that it was the ungodly hours of the morning prompted me to get the conversational ball rolling.

"Why were you unconscious just then?"

Rose smiled guiltily. "Sometimes when I do wandless magic my blood pressure drops and I faint. It's my body telling me that I should be using the magical stick."

My sleep addled mind wasn't functioning at peak performance. "So you're saying you apparated into and out of the boys' room so as to avoid the stairs?"

"Yeah. I felt kind of guilty for acting like such a bitch. The irritating little part of my brain which governs ethics wouldn't let me sleep, so I decided I should explain."

"Back to the apparating thing: you can't apparate at Hogwarts."

"Can't you?" Rose grinned, before closing her eyes and disappearing. I looked around the common room to find her standing behind me, holding onto one of the chairs and swaying slightly.

Presently she looked up at my no doubt somewhat surprised face and said "You can't apparate with a wand at Hogwarts. The founders didn't foresee any students being able to do wandless magic, since most people back then and even now don't think it's possible, and so they didn't ward against wandless apparation."

"And how long have you known that gem of knowledge?"

"Just since tonight. I had a vague theory that it might work, but I hadn't really tested it until this…" she glanced at her watch "morning. Sorry about that."

I rolled my eyes. "You brought me down here for a reason…" I reminded her. As much as I was enjoying the sight of her in pyjamas – surprisingly adorable, especially compared with her during quiddich when she seemed to be channelling the evil psychotic bitch from hell with regard to the other team – I was rather sleepy.

"Right." Responded Rose. "I know I've been acting a bit odd lately,"

"You think? You argued with a teacher to the point of getting detention."

"Thanks for backing me up on that one. Although I've heard that his detentions are imaginative to the point of being somewhat enjoyable. Anyway, basically I was hit with a whole lot of family stuff in an incredibly short amount of time, and I was just taken off guard. And what bugs me is the fact that I could have gotten a heads up about at least some of it, instead of just being told about it via owl. None of my family here are too thrilled by how we were told, but at least the rest of them were able to talk it over amongst themselves, I didn't really have time to head over to their neck of the woods.

"Basically, great aunt Muriel died, much to everyone's surprise, because she was still very much alive and kicking, regardless of the fact that she was 105 this year. Much to everyone's further surprise, she didn't want a big funeral, which meant all that really happened was our parents sent us a letter. When the scary matriarch of the family dies, you expect a little more than a brief note from your parents.

"Admittedly they probably couldn't have foreseen that one, but also what with the stuff going on in America at the moment, dad's being sent over there to help their Ministry deal with the media attention resulting from bridges being blown up. Up until now they've just been blaming the Taliban, but that can't really go on for much longer. That one must have been somewhat foreshadowed. He's already left and he'll be in the states until further notice.

"I'm apparently going to be gaining a new set of grandparents too. As it turns out, during the second wizarding war, mum obliviated her parents and sent them to Australia. I'd always figured they'd been killed. They've been living in Australia for the last 25 years, and mum was only just able to locate them and restore their memories. So they're coming back to England, and I get to meet the grandparents whom I never knew existed, which is going to be a touch weird.

"And, I just got a letter from Vic, saying that she and Teddy are going to get married in the summer. It's not as though the news was unexpected, but surely there would have been a better time and place than a letter we received via owl. Christmas break is in a month and a half…whatever. It was just a lot to deal with."

Well. That explained a lot.

"Rose, I understand that you wanted to talk to someone, but neither of us has exactly been enjoying normal sleep patterns thanks to our sheer amount of classwork, and was this really the best time?"

"Yeah… In retrospect I suppose this was a touch illogical…" she conceded.

I rolled my eyes.

Rose jumped up with far too much energy and pulled me to my feet, and action which was followed by a somewhat steamy kiss… although that was my fault.

But first I had checked to see that none of her family members were set to pop up (I tended to see them at the most inopportune moments).

Rose ended the kiss with a smile and the remark "So not the time or place." Before almost skipping up the stairs to her dorm.

I yawned and trudged up the stairs to my dorm. That had been somewhat unexpected.


	21. Chapter 21

"Rose," I asked, somewhat resigned to the vibe of her answer, "Why is your scalp bleeding?"

"Is it?" she reached up to touch her forehead and examined the blood on her fingertips. "Oh. I suppose it is." She said in a faintly surprised manner before pointing her wand at her hand to clean it. She pointed her wand at her head next, and before she could do herself some permanent damage (pointing one's wand at one's head never ends well), I grabbed her wrist and relieved her of her wand.

"Rose, why are you bleeding?"

"I was attacked by a malignant book."

"Oh. I see. You couldn't find a ladder so you were climbing the bookshelves and accidentally dislodged a book which then hit you on the head."

"It's not like this is a recurring course of action on my part."

"No. The last time, you fell off the top shelf. You're lucky I was there to stop you from breaking something."

"Can I have my wand back? I'm still bleeding if the liquid dripping down my forehead is any indication."

"There's no way in hell I'm allowing you to point a wand at your head and start performing magic on yourself." I said as I pressed my cuff to her hairline. "especially when you're bleeding from the head." I added.

"You do realise your shirt just became a pathogen risk." Rose pointed out, deadpan. "How do you know I'm not host to a complement of nasty diseases?"

"Call it a hunch. Anyway, _this_," I pointed at my wrist, "is safe magic. _That_," I pointed at her head, "is not safe magic." I took my sleeve off her cut to see if it was still bleeding. It was. "Did you even end up needing that book?" I couldn't see a book large or pointy enough to cause damage.

"No. It wasn't what I was looking for."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on. You can't turn up to detention bleeding."

My wrist still pressed to her forehead, I towed her to the fifth floor boys bathroom – the one closest to the library. As we left, Madam Pince gave us a filthy look as if to imply that she thought Rose had been intentionally bleeding on the books and I had been abetting her.

Pushing the bathroom door open, I led Rose over to the sinks. "Have a seat." I said, indicating the bench in which the sinks were set.

"You cannot be serious."

"Who has the head wound?" Rose narrowed her eyes. "Exactly. That would be you. And who doesn't have the head wound? That would be me. Take a seat."

Making a noise which in a girl with less poise would have been called a derisive snort, she jumped onto the bench.

"Seriously, Scorpius. Can I have my wand back? I feel really nervous without it. There's a limit to my capability without my magical twig."

"Rose, there is no limit to your capability with or without your wand."

Rose winced. "Is it cleaned yet?"

"Yes. I'm just getting rid of the rest of the blood. I can't believe you didn't even think of summoning the stupid book."

Rose gave me a withering look. "After the first bookshelf incident, I always summon first. This one wouldn't budge. Thus, I reverted to a more traditional approach. Anyway, I can't believe I'm in the boys bathroom letting you clean my wound."

"You're in the boys bathroom letting my clean your wound because you know I'm not giving you back your wand until I'm done. Anyway, you know I enjoy the chivalry stuff. It's the Eton schooling showing through."

"You're a chauvinistic ass." Rose said with a smile.

"You don't mean that."

"Not entirely." Rose was being suspiciously accommodating.

"And you're not just saying this so I'll give you your wand, are you."

"Is it working?"

"No, but I'm done." I said after removing the blood from my sleeve. I leaned in.

"This is weird. We're in a bathroom. Let's go." She said, jumping off the bench and heading for the exit. She practically pranced up to the seventh floor, at which point she knocked on the door of the Arithmancy room. After a few moments, professor Robertson opened the door and looked at us in a disapproving manner.

"You are aware that you brought this on yourselves."

I shrugged non-commitally.

"Well, to be entirely honest, I had forgotten about you two miscreants. I really can't be bothered actually devising some variety of ironic punishment, because it's bound to just bounce off of your hardened teenage psyches. Just… don't do it again, alright?"

"Ummm… yes professor." Said Rose, sounding as confused as I was. That had been somewhat unexpected.

"Well go on then!" he said, shoo-ing us out of the room.

We backed out, somewhat apprehensively. When we reached the corridor, we glanced at each other, noted the identical looks of absolute hilarity on one another's faces, and exploded into mirth.

About a minute later, professor Robertson exited the room. He saw us, collapsed against the wall, gave us a dirty look and then walked off down the hall.

"Mood swing." Pointed out Rose, who had clearly recovered faster than I had. "Come on." She went on. "Let's enjoy the one Sunday we have without hours of Quiddich."


	22. Chapter 22

And enjoy it we did. With most Sundays taken up with hour upon hour of quiddich training (that being the reason Slytherin had won the house cup four years running – evil taskmaster coaches), it was nice to be able to spend an afternoon in the sun (the precious little there is in northern Scotland), relaxing… with a few make-out sessions in between. Oh the hormones.

There was something nice and relaxing about leaning on my boyfriend's (incredibly muscular) chest, enjoying the last sunlight autumn was likely to give us, not worrying about classes, or family drama or anything.

The fact that Scorpius was kissing his way down my neck was also a factor. I was thankful my family were making use of the Hogsmeade weekend to interrogate Teddy and Victoire face-to-face. I knew I would probably enjoy joining in, but I was just having too much fun.

Just at that moment, I was interrupted by Spike flapping around in my face. I untied the letter tied to his feet and started reading.

_Flower one_

_I'm only telling you this via owl because I don't want to risk seeing anything... you know. Anyway, Victoire really wants to talk to you. It's important. If you could just head over to the shop for a chat it would mean a lot to her._

_Flower two_

"Who's flower two?" asked Scorpius reading over my shoulder.

"Lily. Teddy nicknamed us that when we were little. These days we only use it when we're warning the other to be ready for a pretty intense surprise. I suppose I'd better go and see what the issue is. Probably another family drama." I groaned as i stood up. I'd been having such a nice time.

"Come on. Judging by the bank of cloud approaching, it's not going to be sunny for much longer." He leaned in and kissed me, whilst at the same time, twisting my hair back into a bun and securing it with the giant clip it had been in. I hadn't noticed him take it out.

"Remember what happened the last time you saw fit to play with my hair?" i enquired.

"All too well." Scorpius smirked. He ran a hand down the back of my neck, raising goosebumps. "You really are incredibly sexy when you're angry."

"Don't try it."

"What?"

"Anything. I assure you I WILL hex you into oblivion."

"We'll see about that." He responded, leaning in for an incredibly passionate kiss. Damn he was good.

We walked to Hogsmeade holding hands, in part to keep us from too much contact. PDAs were just distasteful. Arriving at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, we entered the shop when Victoire happened to be behind the counter. She just looked at me and raised an eyebrow as if to say 'I know what you're up to, Mr Willis, and I don't approve.

"I know I already told you by Owl, but congratulations."

"Thanks Rosie. One second. Teddy and I have something we want to ask you, I'll just...TEDDY!" she yelled. "Get the hell out here."

"What can I do?" he asked as he apparated next to Victoire. "Oh. Hi Rose. Scorpius."

"How does he..." Scorpius trailed off, presumably as he remembered his return to England during the past summer holidays. "Oh. Right."

"Yeah." I muttered back.

"We can hear you." Teddy pointed out. "And you're right. There are some things I just didn't need to see."

"Coming from you?" I pointed out. He and Victoire were PDA central.

"Touché." He conceded.

"If you're both quite finished," Victoire cut in with her 'murder eyes': a look she always had when she wanted to get something done, "I'd like to ask you to be a bridesmaid."

I'd been somewhat expecting that, but it was still a bit of a surprise.

"Sure. Of course. Wow."

"Thanks. This is going to be fantastic." She gave me a bonecrushing hug. She then proceeded to tell me that I was going to be spending a large proportion of my holidays helping with the planning. Joy.

It was about then that the heavens began to pour forth a deluge. Giving Teddy a murderous glace, I rescued Scorpius from the interrogation he was being subjected to.

Conjuring an umbrella, we headed back to the castle.

"Sorry about leaving you to Teddy."

"It wasn't too bad. Although...are you sure he can't read minds?"

"Quite. He can change his appearance, but that's about it."

"Right."

"Why?"

"No reason."

"Right."


	23. Chapter 23

I lied. There was a reason.

Whilst Rose and Victoire were hugging each other with unending enthusiasm, Teddy had taken me aside and started interrogating me.

"What were you doing with Rose?"

I was stunned for a moment.

"Oh come on. I was teenage once. What's going on between you two?"

"Nothing you wouldn't approve of."

"That would involve Rose being in a convent where there are by definition no men." He paused for a moment. "Do you love her?"

That was a surprising question. It was also one I knew the answer to. "Yes."

"Really?"

"I want to spend the rest of my life with her."

"Good. Because she loves you more than even she knows, and the wrath of many will fall upon anyone who hurts her."

"I would never…"

"Keep it that way. And we're inviting your family to the wedding. We are cousins and all that."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to put my father and Rose's in the same room?"

"Not in the slightest, but it'll work. Hermione and your mother will keep them in check."

"True."

Rose then appeared and we began to make our way back to school. The entire way back, I was thinking. Until then, I hadn't actually admitted to the fact that I loved Rose. Now I needed to work out a way to tell her.

We were in the Slytherin common room when Rose rounded on me.

"What did Teddy say to you?"

"Nothing. Really. He was just telling me that they were planning to invite my family to the wedding. Cousins and all."

"Like hell." She said, looking around.

"I'm telling the truth."

"That doesn't explain why you're being all silent and pensieve and why you keep glancing at me with this weird expression. Let's walk." She said, clearly deciding that the common room wasn't private enough for this conversation. "What did he say to you, because so help me, I will find out and get mightily grumpy with someone."

We were walking up flights of stairs. After a moment I realised we were headed for the astronomy tower. We'd definitely get some privacy there.

"What did he say?"

"He asked what was happening with us."

Rose looked incredulous. "Not that it's any of his business, but what did you say."

"Nothing he wouldn't approve of."

"Good response. Then what?" I had my back against a door, with Rose standing about a foot away looking, to use her terminology, 'mightily grumpy'.

"It's really not important."

"What. Did. He. Say?" Rose looked positively murderous. She really was sexy when she was angry. I hesitated for a moment. "Tell me." Her voice was softer now. She took a step back and crossed her arms over her chest.

I sighed. May as well get it over with.

"He asked me if I loved you." Rose looked shocked for a moment. "And I said yes. I love you, Rose Weasley."

"I love you too." Rose whispered.

The kiss that followed was something else entirely. Wow.


	24. Chapter 24

Fleur wasn't kidding when she said that weddings were brutal. Not a minute of the Christmas holidays went by that was not occupied with dress fittings or seating plans or sewing. Well actually, it was mainly the sewing. It was my job to turn metres upon metres of silk ribbon into roses for both the bridal bouquet (that way it would last forever), as well as hair decorations and the like. Apparently Victoire wanted everything to be more or less magic free. Because apparently by some ridiculously convoluted logic, it would make the whole wedding affair 'more magical'. Her words. Not mine.

The only thing keeping me remotely sane was the odd moment when mum or aunt Ginny noticed that I was starting to get a bit of cabin fever, at which point they'd bustle me out of the house to go fly around in the snow for a bit. Well actually, that was just aunt Ginny. Mum would set me to helping Anthrax and Megadeth lay righteous waste to the gnomes. If nothing else, gnome flinging was doing wonders for my arm muscles. Because if you can throw an angry gnome, you can throw a quaffle.

To quote the mother character from the comedy show 'Miranda', something Alice had introduced me to, Such Fun. Grandma Molly was really in her element. She delegated the Christmas preparations to aunt Caitlin and uncle George (although the first thing aunt Caitlin did was banish him from being anywhere near anything that could possibly tempt him to engage in mischief – in effect meaning he had to be within my line of sight at all times) and threw herself into the wedding plans like a woman possessed. Apparently she hadn't thrown a decent wedding in over twenty years and was thrilled to have the opportunity. And there I was thinking that she was reasonably sane.

All in all, the holidays were boring, but still enjoyable because the whole Weasley clan was together, and when you're surrounded by your ridiculously extended family, you can't help but have fun.

I was minding the shop with uncle George (an unfortunate incident involving a reanimated turkey prompted aunt Caitlin to kick him out of the house early and forbid him to return until nightfall; this coupled with the fact that the Christmas season was just as busy as, if not moreso than, the return to school) when Jack flew up, a letter tied to his foot.

_Hullo Rose_

_The cousins are here for Christmas and they wanted to meet you. _

_We're going skating tomorrow and ask if you'd like to join us._

_With love,_

_S._

I couldn't help chuckling at the greeting. He wrote letters the way he spoke.

Grabbing a pen, I wrote a reply.

_Scorpius:_

_I'd love to. _

_Rose x_

As I tied the note to Jack and sent him off, I thanked the heavens I'd foreseen the need to do Christmas shopping early. Knowing Scorpius to be a raging metalhead, I had gotten him the DVD of Rammstein's Live at the Volkerball concert. Oh the pyrotechnics.

We were closing up when Jack reappeared.

_We'll meet you at Diagon Alley at 10.00_

_Bring your skates._

_S._

"Young Rosie has a gentleman caller." Noted uncle George wryly.

"That's old news." I dismissed. "Anyway, who says gentleman caller these days?"

"Me, clearly." He pointed out.

"I suppose so." I conceded.

Uncle George offered me his arm. I took it, and a moment later we were outside The Burrow. Walking in, I sought out my mum. "I'm going skating tomorrow with some friends."

She, aunt Ginny, aunt Caitlin and aunt Susan (whilst technically not related to us, we had been brought up all fixed me with piercing stares. "Friends?" they enquired.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm going skating tomorrow with my boyfriend and his cousins."

"Cousins?"

"The children of one's aunt or uncle. Cousins."

"Just checking, Rosie. You can never be too certain." Said mum, smiling.

"And don't get injured." Said aunt Caitlin, whose arms up to the elbow were buried inside a turkey. "I was playing ice hockey once, a girl fell over and another girl skated into her arm. Cut through to the bone. We're talking blood _everywhere_. And then there was that time when my friend Isabel faceplanted whilst skating. Broke her nose and almost knocked her front teeth out. She was eating baby food for a month and a half."

"I'll be careful. I promise." Aunt Caitlin, prior to developing magic and heading to Hogwarts in her sixth year, had dabbled in a wide range of violent muggle sports, and thus had a maiming story to go with more or less any activity. Usually several.

Uncle George walked in and gave her a kiss before she ordered him out.

Looking for my various cousins, I found Albus talking to Alice Longbottom, a girl with whom I had had few interactions, being in different houses, but who seemed perfectly nice. Nor was the fact that they clearly liked each other lost on me. "Hey Al, Alice. Where is everyone?" I had noticed a marked absence of relatives in the house.

Albus thought for a moment. "Mum, your mum, Alice's mum and aunt Caitlin are in the kitchen; grandad's in the shed with uncle Percy, Hugo and James, from what I heard, they're working on something to do with pyrotechnics, so I assume uncle George has joined them; dad, your dad, Alice's dad, uncle Bill and uncle Charlie are setting the tables so as to keep out of everyone's way; grandma Molly and Fleur are working on the dress with Victoire; Lily and Dominique were sent to get a whole bunch of stuff for aunt Caitlin; and I haven't the foggiest as to where Teddy is."

"Teddy went with Lily and Dominique since they're both underage." Supplied Alice.

I pulled out the roses I was working on and got stitching. "What are those for?" asked Alice.

"The wedding." Groaned Albus and I in unison. "Moral of the story:" I continued, "never let anyone know you can sew. It'll never end well."

"On the plus side," said Alice, "and you didn't hear it from me, mind you, come the ball which may or may not hypothetically be planned for the end of the year, you might potentially have an awesome dress. If something like that were to be planned, which I never said it was."

"I would say that that was nice to know, had you in fact said it." I responded.

"Exactly." Grinned Alice.

Albus rolled his eyes at our evasion and general excitement.

"Don't you roll your eyes at us, Albus Potter!" exclaimed Alice. "Things like balls are a hell of a lot more fraught with peril for girls. We need a lot of time to plan."

"All you need to do is stick on a pair of dress robes and you're done." I added. "Girls on the other hand need to find a dress which is neither so revealing that it's skanky, whilst not being so politically correct that they end up looking like great aunt Muriel."

"And then there's the business of who they go with." Alice took over. "Optimally, you're accompanied by a boy. But then there's the knowledge that you're going to be judged by all the other girls when they see who you're with."

"This is, of course, after they've judged you for what you're wearing." Alice and I were more or less talking along the same track. SYNERGY!

"Of course." She continued. "Because if he's a right minger, there are going to be the whispers of 'she couldn't get anyone else'. But then there's the converse, wherein he's attractive, but an absolute bore. In which case your night is going to be crap."

"And god forbid you go with a guy you're just friends with." I had the talking stick. "Because the moment you're seen together there are going to be rumours flying around regarding what your real relationship status is etc. and that's going to make life actively awkward for a good while afterwards."

"And don't even get us started on the minefield that is shoes." I needed to hang out with Alice a bit more. She was brilliant.

"Because there are so many things you could do wrong which will, of course, result in you being judged."

"Too low, and you're a baby. Too high, and you're channelling Lady Gaga, which just isn't ok."

"Too much of an internal platform or too much glitter and you look like a prostitute. Too many straps and you look like a cross-dressing gladiator."

"But of course if there isn't enough of an internal platform or enough straps, you're not going to be able to walk or wear them comfortably all night, and that will show, and you will be judged."

"And then, there's hair and makeup." I said, drawing breath.

"I get it! It's really difficult to get everything right if you're a girl! Ye will be judged! I get it, you can stop now."

"Ok." We said, eyeing each other with respect.

Just then, we were called downstairs for dinner. The dads had set up a heated tent-like arrangement outside, as that was the only way to seat everyone who was there. It was a good, old-fashioned, Weasley extended family extravaganza.

The next day I went to Diagon Alley with uncle George, Teddy and Victoire. I was restocking the skiving snackbox display (those things went like syphilis) when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Scorpius, flanked by three incredibly tall, somewhat scary looking women who had to be his cousins.

After a tight hug, he introduced me to his six foot tall, black haired and multiply pierced cousins. "This is Elin," he indicated the one with the most piercings, "and these are Moona" Mona, "and Laura" La-u-ra, who were clearly twins. "This is Rose." He said to them, pronouncing my name in Finnish, with a flipped 'r' and a vocalised 'e' at the end.

They looked at me for a moment, seemingly sizing me up, before Elin tilted her head to one side and said "Ruska." Along with some Finnish that came too quickly for me to even know when words started and ended. Her sisters nodded. I was walking to the 'employees lounge' as uncle George had ironically named the room where the coffee maker lived, in which we were accustomed to dumping our bags and coats when working the store, and I indicated that Scorpius should join me.

"What does Ruska mean?" I asked as I put on coat and scarf and pulled gloves out of my bag.

Scorpius chuckled. "It's the name for the time in autumn in Finland when all the leaves are red. Apparently you remind them very much of a birch tree which is about to drop its leaves."

"I'll take your word for it." I said, eyebrows raised.

"Now that they've mentioned it, I have to agree." He said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "I'll have to show you some time." Grabbing my skate bag, we headed back into the store.

"How old are they?" I asked. The whole multiple piercings thing had thrown off my estimates of their ages.

"Elin's twenty and the twins are eighteen." I had guessed them to be older.

I couldn't help but notice that Teddy, Victoire AND uncle George were waggling their eyebrows at me as I left. I knew there was going to be a lot of interrogating going on once I got home.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Rose." Said Elin. "Scorpi has told us much about you."

"He's told me all about you guys too." I replied.

"But we thought you would be taller." Mentioned Laura.

"He said you were small, but everything is small next to him." Added Moona. "We were expecting you to be our height."

"I did say Rose was small." He said, putting an arm around my waist. At five foot nine, I was in no way short. It just so happened that Scorpius was six foot six, thus rendering my above average height more or less defunct. It did, however mean that I could wear heels of any height without issue, which was a plus. I noticed that Scorpius's accent was markedly different when he talked with his cousins. Unlike the crisp Eton prep accent I was used to, he seemed to be in Finnish mode, as his wordflow was far more fluid and accented, much like his cousins.

The trip to the open air rink in Hyde Park was taken up by Elin, Moona and Laura grilling me in the way I assume older sisters would grill their younger brother's girlfriend. Thankfully, my answers seemed to be answers of which they approved, so when we arrived at the rink, they left us alone.

"Scorpi?" I asked once we were on the ice.

"Scorpius is a really long name when you're pronouncing it in Finnish. The 'i' and the 'u' get longer and by the time you've finished saying it, it's mucked up the flow of your sentence. So they shortened it for convenience." The Eton prep accent was back.

"They seemed to find me incredibly short." I noted.

"They're from Oulainen. Everyone's tall there. They go to university in Helsinki where the majority of people are tall. Elin's boyfriend makes me look short. Their perception of height is somewhat warped."

At one, I was taken to a little Finnish café Scorpius had found, where his cousins talked me into eating a reindeer burger. It tasted remarkably like beef. We then skated until it was dark.

I sighed when it was time to change back into shoes and head home. "What's up?" asked Scorpius.

"It was really nice to hang out with some people who weren't my family. Love them as I do, when you're spending every day with about twenty or so relatives, things get hectic."

"Twenty or so?" he seemed impressed.

"It's the whole extended family. It's fun, but so help you if you just want some peace and quiet."

Elin, Moona and Laura were giggling about something. A moment later I realised why. A little sprig of mistletoe was fluttering around our heads. After a glare at his cousins, Scorpius gave me as theatrical a kiss as he could manage whilst still adhering to his strict ideas of propriety.

Apparently that wasn't enough for the mistletoe as it continued its attack. So I did what aunt Caitlin taught me to do, and focussed on it really hard, thinking flamey thoughts. And lo it ignited and burned to nothing.

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Best trick I ever learned." I said. "It's especially good for candles."

"I have no doubt." He replied drily, before kissing me again, this time with far less theatrics. "Merry Christmas, Rose."

"Merry Christmas." Damn his ability to make me go all weak at the knees.

"Come on," he said, offering me a hand, "I need to get you back before your relatives start plotting dismemberment."

"Oh, Scorpius." I tutted. "They finished plotting your dismemberment ages ago. They just haven't started carrying it out yet."

"Comforting, Rose. Really comforting. It's always nice to know that some of the best aurors in England are thirsting for my blood."

I shrugged. "As long as I don't end up pregnant, they're not actually going to put their plans into effect."

"Greeeeeeeat."


	25. Chapter 25

Indeed there was interrogating when I arrived home. Indeed there was interrogating once I was back at the store.

"They seemed…" Victoire seemed to be attempting to suppress a grin. "…Nice."

"Totally who I would have expected as the relatives of your young Mr Eton Prep." Remarked uncle George, straight-faced as always.

Teddy was physically spasming as he tried to keep in his own mirth. "You've got to be kidding." He eventually sputtered out as he dissolved into laughter.

I rolled my eyes. "It's a Finnish thing. They're perfectly nice." I said as I scanned the store for the Fursploding Puffskeins. Of course. Uncle George was standing in front of the display with his arms crossed shaking his head. Curse him and his almost sixth sense.

"Are you insane though?" asked Victoire. "What if your mum had seen them? You know your mum's standpoint regarding exciting colours of hair dye and extraneous piercings."

"She'd just judge them quietly and smugly." I pointed out.

"I'd be more concerned with Ron's reaction to be brutally honest." Pointed out uncle George. "He's already unenamoured of the idea that his little Rosie is dating. Add to that the fact that he whom she is dating has _scary looking metal cousins_," that was said in a gravely death-metal voice, "and, well, I'm sure we can all imagine the reaction."

We all cringed for a moment.

"So apart from the initial impression…" Victoire indicated that I should fill in the blanks.

I shrugged. "They're nice. They were surprised by my 'shortness'," inverted commas may or may not have been mimed, "but all in all, they're basically just his older sisters, who, once they had decided they approved of me, more or less left us to our own devices."

"Let me get this straight." Cut in Teddy, who was generally five foot ten, although that varied according to mood. "They were surprised that you, at five foot…" he looked me up and down.

"Nine." I supplied.

"They were surprised that you were so short?"

Victoire at five foot six seemed to be wondering the same thing.

"To quote directly, 'he said you were small, but everything is small next to him'."

"That's a valid point, but come on. What were they expecting? Their height?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Apparently everyone's incredibly tall in their little town. It's warped their perceptions somewhat."

"You don't say."

I shrugged and changed the subject. "Does anyone know what colour the Christmas sweaters are this year?" grandma Molly's colour choice was a closely guarded secret each year. The speculating was the majority of the fun. More importantly, it pulled focus. Until, of course, we all arrived at the burrow, whereat (in a creepy moment of déjà vu) I walked inside to find mum, aunt Caitlin, aunt Ginny and aunt Susan in more or less the exact same positions they'd been in the previous evening, but for the fact that aunt Caitlin was, instead of elbow deep in a turkey, prepping the ham.

"How was your day?" asked mum.

"Fine." I responded. "Devoid of injuries."

"Thank heavens. Remember your last sports related injury?"

"Come on. There were extenuating circumstances. That was not the norm."

Mum gave me a look which said 'yeah right'.

"What did you do?" asked aunt Caitlin.

"Went skating, ate reindeer, went skating."

"Reindeer?" asked mum.

"It's basically beef." Said Caitlin. "What?" she protested when numerous eyebrows were raised in her direction. "You seem to forget the fact that your boyfriend's mother and I are good friends. Speaking of his family, why don't you give us a description of his cousins." She had on the mischievous grin she wore whenever uncle George's influence was rubbing off onto her.

"You know the Thrashing Thestrals?" **(A/N)** Nods all around, combined with mild shock. "Picture them, but without the blood and the eyeliner, and about half the piercings. Other than that, of course, they're lovely, if incredibly tall."

"But Scorpius always seemed so… clean cut." said mum, somewhat confused.

"It's a Finnish thing." I responded.

"Promise me you're not going to… you know… go all metal." She seemed to be having trouble finding the right words.

"You know that's not going to happen, mum. I'm too clean cut."

"I know, I was just checking. And if your father asks, try to sugarcoat it a little."

"Obviously. Do you think I want to be sent to a nunnery?"

"Good to know. Scamper off now."

I rolled my eyes. She ought to have realised by now that I did not scamper.

The next day, as I was delving through the cellar storage area for another crate of a hair product Teddy and I had worked on (basically the idea was to add it to whatever hair product one's target used, at which point their hair would turn technicolour, and stay that way for the next three washes), I managed to hit a fingernail at exactly the wrong angle and noticed it was no longer attached to my hand. Which was good and painful.

Muttering murderously to myself, I trudged up the stairs, trying to get enough compression on my finger to stop the bleeding without actually touching the nailbed, which was far too painful. Needless to say, this was a difficult task, one which failed miserably, and which morphed into me merely trying to keep my clothing blood free. In doing so, I collided with someone tall and firm.

Which meant they got a decent amount of bleeding hand blood all over their shirt. And of course, this was Scorpius, who had an amazing knack for turning up at exactly the times I was most likely to bleed on him. I swore violently, as the force of the collision had aggravated numerous nerve endings, at which point Scorpius noticed that I was bleeding all over him.

"Merlin, Rose, what did you do?" he asked as I blinked involuntary tears from my eyes.

"Removed a fingernail forcibly and by accident." I replied through gritted teeth, waiting for him to move so that I could make it to the 'employees rest area' and rinse off the blood and perhaps out on something which would absorb further bleeding.

Scorpius took the hint and moved out of the way, asking Teddy where the first aid kit was kept and then following when it became evident that there wasn't one. Teddy joined the party once I had my hand under the freezing cold tap, waiting for my blood vessels to constrict enough for the bleeding to subside (aunt Caitlin had taught me well). At least it was numbing the area.

"Give us a look, Rose." Said Teddy, attempting to pry my hand from under the bitingly cold tap.

"It's fine." I replied, knowing that the moment I pulled my hand out, the blood would rain afresh.

"Oh. So that's why your boy looks like he's accessory to a violent homicide." He had a point.

"I tore a nail off my finger. I'm waiting until it stops bleeding, at which point I'd disinfect it if we had any disinfectant, and then I'd bandage it. This is well below your skill set."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

I glared at him, and he shared a look with Scorpius, in which Scorpius rolled his eyes in a 'you're not going to get anywhere' manner, and Teddy shrugged as if to say 'she's all yours'. I checked on the progress of the vasoconstriction. It was close enough. I grabbed some paper towelling and made a makeshift pad, secured it around my finger with duct tape, grabbed my coat and told Teddy I was off to buy iodine and bandages. There was a pharmacy a block down from the Leaky Cauldron.

"Take him with you." instructed Teddy, so I waited for Scorpius to get on his coat, before setting off.

"Sorry about bleeding all over you." I said with as much of a smile as I could muster given that my finger was smarting like hell.

Scorpius shrugged and put an arm around my shoulders. "That's what cleaning charms are for."

"What brings you to this neck of the woods sans your inimitable cousins?"

"I bring news." He paused for a moment. "Guess who's going to be a big brother!" he finally burst out, clearly thrilled.

I stopped in my tracks to give him a hug. Screw the bleeding, this took precedence. "That's amazing! When's the baby due?"

"The start of June. Apparently it's going to be a girl."

We restarted walking. "Is that what you came to tell me?" I enquired.

"Indeed it is. I toyed with the idea of email, but to be honest, I just wanted some time with you without the cousins watching over."

"I'm touched, truly I am," and I was, "but at the moment I'm more excited about disinfectant and maybe something that doesn't feel like it's made of sandpaper on my recently mutilated fingernail."

We reached the pharmacy, and with medical goods in hand returned to the store, at which point Scorpius got all Eton on me and insisted he do the bandaging. Which did in fact come in handy when it came time for the disinfecting, which was inordinately painful, and I probably wouldn't have done properly, which when taken in consideration with the fact that I have managed to get dirt into more or less every wound I have ever sustained, probably wouldn't have boded well.

This of course gave me time to survey the surprisingly large bloodstain decorating the front of Scorpius' shirt, making him into a walking pathogen risk. "You're going to have to do something about that." I remarked. "You can't go out in public with that much blood on your chest."

"In all likelihood not, but since we're both underage, there's not much we can do about it." He said, as he washed his hands, my finger more or less immobilised (which was perhaps overkill) but nonetheless clean, dry and not nearly as painful as it had been.

"TEDDY!" was the logical response.

"Can I help you kids?" he asked.

"I've turned Scorpius into a pathogen risk. Would you be nice enough to-"

Teddy cut me off with an eye roll and turned to Scorpius. "As much as I hate to say this, shirt off. Wash off any blood that made it through to your skin."

He did as he was told, at which point I was momentarily distracted. I'd only seen him with his shirt off once before, and I reminded myself to do so more often. To say that he was smokin' hot didn't do justice. He noticed me looking and winked as he pulled his now clean shirt back on. Teddy rolled his eyes. "Verity's going to be coming in at any moment, and you're not exactly going to be working at peak productivity. Go home."

I had to admit that he had a point. I grabbed my things and headed for the fireplace, with Scorpius following. Once I'd been deposited in the living room, I noticed that someone had left a note addressed to me. I noticed because it was enchanted to poke me in the shoulder incessantly until I opened it. It was from Dominique – that much was evident from the fact that it was written in purple fountain pen. I unfolded it, no mean feat might I add because she had a knack for origami, and tended to go the extra mile when it came to folding things, and started reading.

Hey Rose

I was going to call you, but then I realised that you have no use for a phone until you graduate. Anyway, the reason for which I had this piece of paper abuse you so was that Jamie's with me at the Burrow, and I'm trying to introduce him to the family gradually so that he isn't subjected to the full onslaught all at once... Dear god that was a convoluted sentence.

So if you'd be able to pop over ASAP, that would be spiffing.

Feel free to bring the Viking if he's there with you.

Mini.

I had only made it to the second sentence when Scorpius had appeared, walked up behind me and started kissing my neck in the most disconcerting fashion. I may have squealed slightly and tried to edge away, which of course led to him wrapping his arms tightly around my waist and continuing with gusto.

After a moment or so, he stopped and asked "Who's the Viking?" apparently he'd been reading over my shoulder.

"You're the Viking." I said, attempting to extricate myself so that I could get some painkillers for my thumb. And failing.

"I don't follow."

"You're giant and Scandinavian. As far as Mini is concerned, you're a Viking."

The response I got was a muffled noise of assent as Scorpios went back to my neck. I let him continue for a moment (I was rather enjoying the melting feeling) before bringing him back to the task at hand. "You read the note." I pointed out.

"And?"

"And our presence is requested."

"It can't wait?" he had, clever little multitasker that he was, already succeeded in untucking my blouse and was working on the buttons. And whilst I had in theory no qualms with where the afternoon was heading, I knew that Mini wouldn't have left a note if she hadn't really wanted me there. I put my hands on top of his, stopping him from getting any further.

"Later."

He chuckled, and I could feel it rumbling in his chest. "You know I'm going to take you up on that."

And trust me, I did.

**A/N:** The Thrashing Thestrals are a wizarding metal band invented by my friend in her Oliver/Percy fic 'Between Love and Hate'. Search it. Her user is 'Lege et Lacrima'.

Whilst Legs didn't really go into the details of what variety of metal the Thestrals indulge in, I'm going to go ahead and ponder. In my universe, they're an ultra-death speed metal band. Kind of like Dethklok on steroids. And, of course, Finnish. Like all the best metal bands.


End file.
